▲ Citizens protest for severe punishment of an adoptive mother.

There is a saying, "Affection from child rearing is bigger than that from childbearing." This saying means that an adopted child is as precious as a biological child. However, not every family likes their adopted child. On May 14, the adoptive mother of Jeong-in was sentenced to life in prison for abusing and killing this 16-month old girl. She was indicted last December on charges of habitually abusing her adopted daughter, Jeong-in. The adoptive father was also indicted without detention for neglecting to take action despite being aware of his wife's abuse.

▲ Jeong-in`s pancreas was amputated.

Jeong-in was already reported for child abuse three times. However, it was cleared of all charges. Eventually, on September 13, 2020, she was abused for not eating for an hour, and she died. The medical team reported to the police that there was a possibility of child abuse for seeing an injury to her head. This incident was passed to National Forensic Service. Finally, it was concluded that the causes of her death are mesenteric hemorrhage, bowel perforation, and pancreas amputation. The Its Know, which is a TV program, concluded that these symptoms appeared by getting a shock like a traffic accident and a shock of a male athlete.

This incident had a large impact on many fields. In political circles, they promised to have recurrence prevention. Moreover, the religious world and entertainment world said that they miss her. Also, the police commissioner announced to have a public apology, and the police chief of the region said that Jeong in's life was lost for overlooking child abuse.

The number of child abuse cases in South Korea is increasing every year. According to a statistic, it increased from 11,700 in 2015 to 30,000 in 2019. So, lawmakers passed the bill to strengthen the punishment of child abuse. According to the changed law, any person who commits child abuse will be sentenced to the death penalty or imprisonment for seven years to life imprisonment. Originally, one would be sentenced to five years to life imprisonment. As the punishment was strengthened, many hope for the decrease of child abuse cases.

May 22, 2021

By Yejun Byun