The’immediate separation system’, which separates children who have been abused more than once from abusers, will be implemented from the 30th. However, some point out that it is too impatient because there are no facilities to accommodate separated children. The government announced that it would expand related facilities by the end of this year at the latest.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare decided on the’Amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Child Welfare Act’ at the State Council on the 23rd. This is a detailed draft of the amendment to the Child Welfare Act, which allowed the head of a local government to immediately bring the child to a shelter for victims of abuse and protect the child if there is a suspicion of the abuse of a child who has been reported twice or more within a year. The immediate segregation system passed the National Assembly threshold on December 29, as the case of Jeong In-i (adopted child abuse death) broke out in October of the same year following the case of child abuse in Cheonan and Changnyeong in June and July of last year.
Separated children will always be … Facilities will be’prepared within the year’
It is highly likely that the number of children separated by the immediate introduction of segregation agents will increase. However, there are not enough facilities to accommodate them. As of November last year, 3,482 children were separated from their homes due to abuse. However, there are only 76 shelters for children victims of abuse. The shelter, which provides protection, treatment, and childcare services for 3 to 9 months, has a capacity of 7 people. The total capacity is only 532 people. There are temporary protection facilities that provide temporary protection, but there are also only 11 in the country. Children victims of abuse are not sent to’where appropriate according to the situation’, but to’where there is an open space’ or sent to a general childcare facility. If even that doesn’t make sense, they sometimes return to the original family.
The government knows this too. This is why measures such as expanding shelters to 105 locations this year and provision of at least one temporary protection facility in each city/province were prepared. A new’Family Protection Project for Children at Risk’ that can protect children under the age of 2 can be protected by more than 200 professionally educated families. Currently, more than 300 families have applied, and education and background checks are being conducted for them. Families that have completed the preparation work will take care of the victims from April. When there is no room in the facility, temporary alternatives such as using existing nursing facilities or allowing admission outside the garden were also proposed.
There is no’how after separation?’
Experts criticized the government for being too hasty. Usually, when the relevant laws are revised, it takes about six months to prepare, but this time, it took place in three months as a series of child abuse cases followed. Professor Hwang Ok-gyeong of the Department of Children’s Studies at Seoul Theological University said, “Does it make sense to provide facilities necessary for the enforcement of the law after the enforcement of the law?” It is difficult to provide,” he said.
Some point out that the emphasis on’separation’ only means that the measures’after separation’ are inadequate. Ik-joong Jung, a professor at the Graduate School of Social Welfare at Ewha Womans University, said, “If you go to a shelter in another area because there are not enough shelters for each area, what will the child do with the pre-existing daycare center? Three-dimensional measures are still lacking,” he criticized as “a hasty measure that does not take into account the child’s point of view at all.”
Jinju Kim reporter [email protected]
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