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Is it acceptable to leave parents in charge of a second child after they left their first child to starve to death? This, some might say, is a clear-cut instance where the government has a duty to deprive parents of the right to raise their children.
The Suown District Court recently suspended the sentence of a man identified as Lee on charges of child abuse after he and his wife failed to feed their three-year-old first son appropriately and left him to die. Yang, the wife, was also given a suspended sentence. Prosecutors had sought a year in jail for the couple on charges of child abuse. But the court took their second child into consideration and delivered a softer sentence.
Lee and Yang married immediately after they graduated from high school at the age of 19 and 18. Since then, they had lived in poverty. On the morning of Nov. 16 2006, the couple found their first son dead in their rented basement flat. They took the boy to hospital and reported the death to the authorities. At the time, Lee was jobless and Yang was the sole earner.
Police investigated and found that the boy¡¯s death was the result of extreme malnutrition. The couple claimed he had refused to eat when they gave him food and said they were so poor that they could not afford to take him to hospital. However, prosecutors checked the health insurance of the couple and found that both had seen doctors frequently when they themselves were sick.
Korean courts often deliver lenient sentences for parents who abuse and neglect a child. Oh Sun-young, a staffer at children¡¯s rights organization Save the Children Korea, says Korean society ¡°is unduly tolerant of parents¡¯ negligence of child due to the patriarchal tradition, where children are thought of as the property of their parents.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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