Vietnamese teen investigated for abandoning newborn

South Korean police said Thursday a recently born girl was found inside the bathroom of an underground shopping district, and that the mother is under investigation for abandoning the baby.

The child was found inside a bag placed in the bathroom of the shopping district in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, at around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The child was in good health, and still had the umbilical cord attached.

The child was taken to a nearby hospital for medical care.

Police used surveillance footage to track down the mother, a 19-year-old Vietnamese national, at her residence in the same city.

It is unclear why the woman abandoned her child. Police plan to conduct an investigation with the help of an interpreter.

A Ministry of Health and Welfare report in August showed that nearly 100 children are abandoned by their legal guardians each year. The number of abandoned children has been on a downward trend, from 169 in 2020 to 73 in 2022, but increased to 88 in 2023.

A National Police Agency report in 2023 showed that 1,185 cases of babies being abandoned had occurred from 2013 to 2022.

Researchers from the Korean National Police University in 2021 published a study analyzing verdicts related to 46 cases of killing or abandoning a baby, and found all but one of the culprits was an unmarried mother. Eight of the mothers were underage, and in 34 of the cases (73.9 percent) they cited financial difficulties for the abandonment.