Forcing underwear on a child who had a bowel accident
Ulsan District Court sentences 5 million won fine
A kindergarten childcare teacher who made young children cry for fun and filmed it to upload on social networking services (SNS) was sentenced to a fine.
On the 19th, the Ulsan District Court Criminal Division 2 (Presiding Judge Hwang Hyung-joo) announced that it sentenced Mr. A to a fine of 5 million won and Mr. B to a fine of 2 million won, respectively, on charges of violating the Special Act on the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes. They worked as childcare teachers at a kindergarten in Ulsan and were prosecuted for allegedly distorting the face of a 4-year-old child in the classroom with their hands for fun in July 2022 and filming it with a mobile phone while laughing.
Mr. A reportedly held up underwear soiled with feces to a child who had a toileting accident and also filmed videos of children crying after being scolded. It was reported that he continued filming even though the children in the videos showed gestures refusing to be filmed. Mr. A even uploaded such videos on SNS, but sent only videos showing the children enjoying themselves to the parents.
During the trial, Mr. A claimed, "I filmed the children crying because their crying looked cute," but the court did not accept this and ruled it as child abuse.
The court pointed out, "Instead of comforting the crying victim children, he made them cry more, kept the videos, and uploaded them on his personal SNS, so the guilt is not light." Regarding the sentencing, the court explained, "However, consideration was given to the situation where he had to take care of more than 20 kindergarten children during the COVID-19 pandemic."
Meanwhile, there was also a recent case where a daycare childcare teacher who emotionally abused children by, for example, taking away blankets during nap time was sentenced to imprisonment in an appellate trial.
On February 10th, the Chuncheon District Court Criminal Division 1 (Presiding Judge Shim Hyun-geun) overturned the original sentence of a 9 million won fine for Ms. C (37), a daycare childcare teacher indicted for violating the Special Act on the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes, and sentenced her to 6 months imprisonment with a 1-year probation. Additionally, she was ordered to attend 40 hours of lectures on preventing child abuse recidivism. Ms. C was prosecuted for emotionally abusing children 24 times from late March to early May 2021.
Ms. C was accused of using force to emotionally abuse children who were not properly controlled during playtime, snack/lunch, and nap time. The court examined the circumstances and the degree of force used by Ms. C to determine guilt or innocence, and accepted the prosecution’s claim that the original sentence was too light, choosing imprisonment instead of a fine in the appellate trial.
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