[SBS Special] Corporal punishment, discipline and abuse ②

There is no child who can be beaten , and   there is no hawk of love.

In the SBS special broadcast on the 9th, the subtitle of'Corporal Punishment, Discipline, and Abuse' highlighted child abuse.

Abuse in the name of discipline, a total of 43 children died of abuse last year. It was corporal punishment and abuse that returned to the children who wanted warmth and love.

And as the children said that the love hawk does not exist, the children who raised their voices saying that there is no age that can fit into this world and that no child can fit, the Ministry of Justice announced the removal of the disciplinary rights clause prohibiting corporal punishment by parents.

In response, some parents also say, "For discipline, it is impossible not to complete corporal punishment." So, is there any way to raise a child well without corporal punishment? And can we stop abuse by eliminating corporal punishment?

In the case of a girl's escape in Changnyeong last May, the place where a child who was abused at home escaped was a convenience store. No one noticed the abuse of the child until the child, whose face and body were full of signs of abuse, escaped.

Even though this child was registered in the Child Happiness Support System, which was created to prevent child abuse and find victims in advance, no one in the municipality encountered the child.

And a month later, another death case occurred in Cheonan due to child abuse. A stepmother left her child in a suitcase. Before the child was trapped in his bag, a sign of danger was already spotted. Doctors, who found signs of abuse in a child who came to the emergency room a month before the death, reported suspected abuse to the police. Accordingly, an investigation into child abuse by the police and child protection organizations was conducted. However, they were unable to find any suspicions of child abuse, and the child who returned with his parents died a month later.

An expert said, "In Korea, the rate of child abuse detection is about one third compared to overseas. The history of child abuse is short."

It was after meeting Shin-ae in 1999 that our society took seriously about child abuse. She was neglected by Shin-ae's parents, who were childhood cancer patients, and we became aware that this was abuse.

Accordingly, in 2000, abandonment and neglect were recognized as child abuse, and punishment was also created. It was the first step in social intervention in child abuse.

However, the case of child abuse continued after that, and the death of child abuse in Chilgok occurred in 2013. My 12-year-old sister said she killed her 8-year-old brother, but it was a statement by stepmother's coercion. While the child was dying from the terrible abuse of the stepmother, the father neglected it. The court also punished the father who neglected the abuse, which was the first case to punish the neglect.

Following the death of Lee Seo-Hyun child abuse in 2013, we were angry, and the following year, a special law on punishment for child abuse was passed by the National Assembly. In addition, it was expected that punishment for perpetrators of child abuse will be strengthened, and child abuse will decrease in the future.

However, the 2015 Incheon girl abuse escape incident occurs again. A child who escaped through a gas pipe with bare feet. Even though they had been absent from school for a long time, criticism continued on the school for not taking this as a problem, and a full investigation was conducted on children who were absent from school. Accordingly, the victims of the 2016 Bucheon elementary school student's murder and the 2016 Bucheon female middle school student Baekgol's body were found.

However, even after the death of 7-year-old Won-young in 2018, child abuse continued unfinished.

The number of child abuse cases is increasing every year, with over 30,000 cases last year, 43 deaths alone, and 175 children in 6 years. Although a special law was enacted, contrary to the expectation that the incidence of child abuse would decrease, crimes continued to increase and the contents were getting terrible. In response, an expert said, "It is difficult to see that the system itself around a child abuse case is working well."

Also, why did the children continue to die despite the government's countermeasures following every major incident? In response, an expert said, "Complete surveys are easy to say and it is difficult to obtain effectiveness. Because it is a work done by humans, it is difficult without people and institutions. However, the turnover rate reaches about 40% because people working at specialized child protection organizations are not properly treated." He pointed out that there is no shortage of specialized personnel and institutions to respond.

And it turns out that the child abuse budget is a crime victim protection fund, which is shared by several departments. In particular, the child abuse budget, which was pushed out of priority, was found to be less than 1% of the total budget of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which was shocking.

The expert said, "The expansion of the child's allowance directly leads to the vote. That is why it can be expanded immediately. However, no one is working on the budget to protect abused children. In the end, children who are not voted are neglected nationally." I applied a needle.

And experts emphasized that the protection and management of children after the punishment of child abuse and the separation of children and parents are of paramount importance. It took a lot of time and effort to heal the trauma of abuse. In fact, many children were still struggling.

An expert said, "I am very interested in punishment, but I am not very interested in what will happen to my child after that," he said. "It is also necessary to clearly analyze why parents hit the child."

On August 3, the Ministry of Justice announced a legislative amendment to the Civil Code, removing the provision of Article 915 of the Civil Code, ``The parental authority has the right to protect and cultivate, and can take necessary disciplinary action''. This was to prevent the disciplinary right from being justified as disciplinary discipline because the disciplinary right clause itself is being mistaken as the basis for corporal punishment.

In fact, the perpetrators of abuse stressed that their abuse was disciplinary, not abuse. Because the child lied, the child did not listen, I only disciplined with love. That it is not corporal punishment. And the perpetrators protested that it was disciplinary action, which influenced the judgment.

Experts said of child abuse perpetrators, "They are ordinary people, and most of them were birth parents, not stepmothers or stepfathers." In fact, about 80% of child abuse cases were their biological parents, and more than 80% of the deaths were their biological parents.

In fact, the birth mother of the Changnyeong child abuse case was angry with another child abuse case. However, many people were shocked because they thought that the actions they inflicted on their own children were not abuse but as a means to envy them. Experts stressed, "Corporal punishment is an escalator that leads to abuse. At first, one of the backs develops and changes to the use of tools. Corporal punishment can develop into abuse as much as possible."

Another expert asked, "These days, I don't hit animals, I don't hit criminals. But why should I be beaten by children?"

Parents who tried to raise their children well, even through corporal punishment, but wasn't this really the greed of their parents?

In response, the abuse victims said, "I don't know why the name of the falcon of love was given. If you want to make us good, I want you to explain it nicely. I don't know why it hits me when I say it's okay. Even if I hit just one, the children are deeply hurt." Said.

"Discipline is teaching. It does not include physical and mental corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is a wrong method of discipline. Many cases reported as violence initially started as corporal punishment," he pointed out that it is not correct to use corporal punishment for discipline. did. He added that corporal punishment should not be used as a means of controlling children.

Korea thinks that raising children without corporal punishment is difficult. Is it really impossible to raise a child without corporal punishment?

Sweden, a country with advanced child welfare, had a time when thinking similar to ours. However, in 1971, a law was enacted to completely ban corporal punishment by parents after a 3-year-old girl died from abuse. This was 10 years ahead of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And since then, through a number of campaigns, they have tried to change people's perceptions, and over time, parents who believed they had the right to hit their children changed. Therefore, 95% of parents now believe that corporal punishment is not right. And the children themselves came to think that violence was not right.

Is this possible only in developed countries? Indeed, there was someone who gave us this answer 100 years ago. Soap Jeong-hwan Bang.

At the heart of his thought was "Do not hit children, do not starve children, do not let children do adult work." Professor Jeong-Hwan Bang published the Children's Manifesto in 1923, which was also ahead of the world. He emphasized that children should be viewed as independent individuals such as adults and respected.

Parents make things easy to their children that cannot be easily said to others. The word that hurts is also abuse, but corporal punishment that touches the body would not be discipline. Now, the expert emphasized, "Because it is an abuse even if you beat one Taiwanese, you should not start one from the beginning."

In addition, he said, "It is most important to take care of and raise children in child abuse cases." And he advised, "What we have to do is already well organized. Then we must do it now. Shouldn't children be rescued and protected as soon as the family is the world, and the world is hell?"

Granting children's rights does not mean that parents' rights are lessened. Now is the time for us to step forward to make your child happy.

(SBS funE editor Kim Hyo-jeong)       

▶ [Corporal punishment, discipline and abuse ①] "I want to go to the hospital" Child cancer Shinae case... 'Abuse' in the name of neglect
▶ [Corporal punishment, disciplinary action, and abuse ③] One of the'backs' at the moment of fright… Is it the hawk of love, discipline or abuse?