South Korea’s law enforcement agencies and public servants in charge of the protection of children have been criticized for acting too passively when they deal with child abuse cases. (Image : Pixabay)
SEOUL, Nov. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Under a new government policy, if child abuse reports are made to the police or other child protective authorities more than two times the children in concern will be separated from their abusers immediately.
South Korea’s law enforcement agencies and public servants in charge of the protection of children have been criticized for acting too passively when they deal with child abuse cases.
To address such criticism, the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a string of new guidelines on Sunday.
Included in the guidelines is a provision stating that the police and public servants engaged in protection of children should take active considerations of sending children to protection facilities if child abuse reports are made more than two times or if child abuse is reported by medical professional.
In particular, the guidelines stipulate that if the children for whom abuse reports are made more than two times have bruises or scars, they should be separated from their abusers for 72 hours.
The government also introduced the ‘instant separation system’ that is designed to instantly separate children from those suspected of abusing them, including parents, until the municipal government takes a decision on on protection measures, if child abuse reports are made two times within a year.
From now on, if a child abuse report is made, the public servants concerned should meet and interview the neighbors of the abused children to check if there were any suspicious situations in the past.
In addition, if they find bruises or scars on infants and toddlers who have difficulty in expressing their opinions, they should take them to be diagnosed at a hospital to accurately identify if they have been abused or not.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
