Na Kyung-won’s Pledge to Establish a 'Park Won-soon Sexual Violence Fact-Finding Committee'

Expansion of Infant and Toddler Allowance to 200,000 Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] Na Kyung-won, former lawmaker and candidate for the Seoul mayoral by-election from the People’s Party, has pledged measures to prevent power-based sexual crimes, including the establishment of a fact-finding committee on the sexual violence case involving former Mayor Park Won-soon and the launch of a dedicated sexual crime reporting center for high-ranking Seoul city officials.

On the 22nd, Na held a press conference in front of Seoul City Hall to announce measures against sexual violence.

First, she proposed the establishment of a fact-finding committee regarding the sexual violence case involving former Mayor Park.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

She also expressed her intention to launch an independent 'Sexual Crime Reporting Center for High-Ranking Seoul City Officials' separate from the Seoul mayor, to serve as an autonomous monitoring body. Additionally, she confirmed her resolve to exclude sexual offenders from their duties without leniency.

She announced plans to establish an Equal Employment Opportunity Committee to eradicate workplace gender discrimination and to implement a monitoring system that prevents discrimination based on disability, gender, and other factors.

Furthermore, she promised to distribute a smart integrated safety app to all citizens to prevent sexual violence, domestic violence, and digital sexual violence, and to expand digital sexual violence prevention education targeting children and adolescents.

Her pledges also include projects for women’s safe housing environments, expansion of women’s safety guardians, and implementation of the Seoul Women’s Safety Housing Certification System.

To prevent child abuse, she plans to form groups such as the 'Seoul Child Happiness Guardians' to establish a system for early detection of children at risk of abuse. In particular, she intends to strengthen investigative activities by utilizing the Seoul Special Judicial Police system and ensure that local police can immediately investigate confirmed cases of abuse.

In addition to improving the reporting and prevention system, psychological counseling will be added to the infant health checkup program supported by Seoul City, and completion of child abuse prevention education will be made mandatory in connection with welfare services such as childcare allowances.

Na also revealed plans to expand childcare support. First, she intends to provide 200,000 KRW per month to infants and toddlers aged 0 to 5. Currently, payments vary between 100,000 and 200,000 KRW depending on the child’s age, so this effectively means an increase in the payment amount.

She also promised to introduce the Seoul-style babysitter service and establish Seoul childcare assistants. The babysitter service aims to prevent child abuse by strengthening qualification standards for babysitters. The childcare assistant program is a job creation project for women who have experienced career interruptions, employing them as childcare helpers in childcare facilities and kindergartens for 15 hours per week with an income of 1 million KRW.