This photo shows a woman who was sentenced to a 20-year prison term on Nov. 5, 2021, for neglecting her three-year-old daughter to death. (Yonhap)
INCHEON, Nov. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — A 32-year-old single mother was sentenced to 20 years behind bars Friday for leaving her three-year-old daughter home alone for three days, causing her to die of dehydration and neglect.
The Incheon District Court also ordered her to take 40 hours of child abuse therapy and barred her from employment at institutions for children for 10 years, delivering the verdict.
Prosecutors had earlier demanded a 25-year imprisonment.
The mother, whose name was withheld, left the three-year-old daughter alone at their home in Incheon, west of Seoul, for three days in July while she went on a date.
Court records showed the mother found her 38-month-old daughter dead after returning home. Without reporting it to authorities right away, however, she stayed in hiding at her boyfriend’s home for two week before making a belated report.
The court pointed out that “the child, left alone while a heat wave warning was in effect, had no power to open a water bottle to drink water or unlock the front door on her own.”
“Aware of these facts, the mother was sufficiently able to predict the child, if left alone for three days or longer, could die.”
Investigators found she gave the daughter a bag of snacks, candies and two bottles of juice when left home in July. Having been fed no food or water during her mother’s three-day absence, the child eventually died of dehydration.
Including the period, the child had been left to stay home alone on a total of 26 occasions during a span of two months.
Investigations also showed she raised the child as an unmarried single mother and was on the government subsidy program for people in the lowest income bracket.
(Yonhap)
