Korea is seeing an increase in abuse cases involving migrant children

Representative Lee Jasmine of the small progressive Green Justice Party speaks during a plenary session at the National Assembly in Seoul, February 29. Courtesy of Lee Jasmine’s office

By Lee Hae-rin

Korea is seeing a growing number of cases of abuse against children with a migrant background, government data showed on Monday.

One lawmaker urged the government to come up with improved support systems to protect them, stressing that many of the existing measures only target children of Korean nationality.

The number of reported cases of abuse of migrant children has grown over the past five years — 230 in 2018, 346 in 2019, 407 in 2020, 576 in 2021 and 596 in 2022 — according to Department of Health and Human Services data released by Rep. Lee Jasmine of the small progressive Green Justice Party. During that period, this figure has increased 2.5 times.

Among them, the number of confirmed cases of child abuse also rose from 175 in 2018 to 386 in 2022, representing a staggering increase of 120 percent.

About 80 percent of perpetrators were parents, followed by nursing school teachers and family members.

Despite the rising numbers, Lee emphasizes that the government is not making sufficient preparations to effectively protect migrant children from abuse.

In Korea, under the Special Cases Act on Punishment of Child Abuse, a juvenile victim can be separated from the perpetrator if there is a significant and imminent risk of repeat abuse. In these cases, the victimized children can be placed in shelters and receive maintenance benefits.

However, foreign national children cannot benefit from such protective measures because they are not defined as eligible recipients under the National Basic Living Security Act.

The ministry recommends that local municipalities use their budgets to provide financial support to child victims of abuse of foreign nationality, but does not provide specific guidelines.

As a result, the amount of benefits provided to such victims depends solely on the discretion of local governments.

For example, North Jeolla Province provided about 750,000 won ($540) in living expenses per child in 2021, while Pohang in North Gyeongsang Province provided 16,000 won per month for two children for four and five months, respectively, from 2022 to 2023.

In contrast, the southern port city of Ulsan did not generate any money between 2019 and 2023.

Lee suggests that migrant children are particularly vulnerable to abuse at home because they fear that their legal residency status will be at risk if their parents’ abuse is reported to authorities.

“Korea should improve its discriminatory administrative system that determines the scope of protection against violence based on the victim’s nationality and registration, and protect all migrant children from abuse,” the lawmaker said.