Children to be allowed to demand cutting ties with abusive parents

The government will present a revision to family litigation law in September to expand the rights of underage children and more effectively deprive unqualified parents of their authority, legal sources said Tuesday.

According to the revision, teenage children who are abused by their parents will be able to file a suit against parents to demand the state invalidate their parental authority.

Up until now, children have had limited rights in family-related trials, which experts cited as one of the reasons for persistent child abuse cases. Underage children were only able to wage a suit through their legal representatives such as prosecutors and relatives.

The procedures will become more child-friendly to allow young victims to be better represented in family-related trials. The act will stipulate the court’s duty to match underage children with counsellors or legal experts who can assist them with the legal procedures. It will become mandatory for the court to listen to children’s testimonies in family-related cases.

Since February last year, the Ministry of Justice has run a committee, consisting of judges, lawyers and law professors, to reform the Family Litigation Act, which took effect in 1991. The final review is underway, with its draft to be completed in September.

The move comes amid criticism that the act has failed to reflect the shifting social atmosphere. Some parents were found to have exercised their parental rights to abuse children and refuse governmental intervention, citing “family affairs.”

A recent survey by the National Child Protection Agency, showed that more than 80 percent of child victims were abused by their parents in 2014. When the children returned home, 87.2 percent of them became subject to child abuse again. Last year, the court issued protection orders for 205 children, but parental rights were halted in only 43 cases.

This year, a series of deaths of children at the hands of their parents shocked the nation, the latest being the case involving Ahn Seung-ah.

Investigation is underway to find the body of the 4-year-old child killed by her 36-year-old mother, surnamed Han. Han was found dead in an apparent suicide after police began to probe the case.

By interrogating the child’s stepfather, identified as Ahn, police found that Han pushed the girl into a bathtub filled with water several times until she lost consciousness in December 2011. Her body was left outside in the corner of a veranda for three days before it was buried on a hill in Cheongju, Chungcheong Province.

Ahn was arrested for aiding and abetting the murder, and abandoning the body.

Five child abuse cases were uncovered in recent months since the government launched a nationwide inspection in January on children who have been absent from school for a long period of time or not enrolled in school on time. It is also tracking down those who have no record of receiving medical checkups and vaccinations at hospitals.

The Education Ministry said last week that it had confirmed the whereabouts of thousands of long-term absentees from schools, but 19 children still remain unaccounted for.

Most recently, police opened a probe on Tuesday into a 4-year-old child, surnamed Park. He is believed to have been born in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and was sent to Gunsan, Jeolla Province 10 days later. His whereabouts have remained unknown since then.

The Welfare Ministry said earlier in the day in a meeting with child protection agencies that it would release extensive measures on March 29 to prevent child abuse.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)