hankyoreh

The death of a North Korean defector and her son in a Seoul apartment

The death of a 42-year-old North Korean defector surnamed Han and her six-year-old son (born in 2013) underscores both the steep barriers to welfare faced by the underprivileged and the poor state of South Korea’s child protection system. The bodies of Han and her son were found in their rental apartment in Seoul’s Bongcheon neighborhood, a full two months after their deaths.

While the precise cause of death remains uncertain, pending autopsy results, it’s likely that the two starved to death. This suggests the shortcomings of the Child Protection Act, which is supposed to help children in poverty, who are in desperate need of social, economic, and emotional support. More importantly, Han’s son was reportedly suffering from epilepsy.

Hankyoreh reporters learned on Aug. 21 that Han’s son had been flagged for warning signs in the “electronic system for supporting children’s happiness” (which the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been operating since this past March with the goal of identifying and helping at-risk children), but that the boy was not ultimately categorized as a child who needs assistance.

The electronic system for supporting children’s happiness (operated separately from the “welfare loophole identification and management system”) combs through information from the “social security information system” (which manages data about enrollees in each ministry’s welfare programs and their benefit history) and data about whether children have received health checks and vaccinations to create a quarterly list of children who are suspected of being at-risk and providing that to government offices at rural townships and urban neighborhoods around the country. After receiving the list, public servants in those localities are supposed to personally visit the home of the child in question, look into the child-rearing environment, and connect the family with the necessary welfare services.

“Leading up to our third survey this year (held between July and September), Han’s son was confirmed as having missed his infant checkup and as living in a home that was very behind on its health insurance premiums,” said an official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare. At the time, Han’s son was one of 700,000 children (below the age of 18) exhibiting warning signs in 41 data categories. The relative gravity of each risk factor was assessed to narrow that down to 20,000 children, and Han’s risk level was reportedly not high enough to be included on the final list that was then sent to local government offices. Since the electronic support system for children’s happiness incorporates data from the social security information system, these results included various indicators, such as the fact that Han’s household had no recognized income (neither wages nor assets) when she applied for child benefits and that she was a single mother.

It is the practice in Seoul, where Han was living, for social workers at neighborhood offices to visit households that are receiving child-rearing allowance (provided to all households with infants, regardless of their income level) for the purpose of child protection, which is unrelated to the programs operated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Han visited the neighborhood office to apply for child-rearing allowance in October 2018 and continued to receive the monthly payment until her demise. A social worker from the neighborhood office did visit Han’s house this past April but found no one at home, and only put a notice on the door. Despite the failure to confirm the status of the child, no follow-up measures were taken.

A social worker who spoke on condition of anonymity offered the following perspective. “The follow-up measures taken [when a home visit for child protection doesn’t work out] seem to vary with the place. I think the system should be operated more methodically. A home visit can’t take place without the family’s cooperation, and people are often suspicious about how the social workers got their information and refuse to cooperate. And during some consultations, we learn to our embarrassment that there’s nothing we can do for the family.”

Ever since the nation was horrified by the death of a woman and her two daughters in Seoul’s Songpa District in 2014, one of the major goals at the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been using big data to improve its techniques for identifying at-risk families whenever members of vulnerable groups who were excluded from the social safety net turn up dead. But in addition to concerns about excessive data collection, there are fundamental constraints on this approach’s ability to provide support to vulnerable households and children. For example, children whose birth wasn’t reported to the government, households without a definite domicile, and infants with little data to mine aren’t susceptible to analysis.

To be sure, a data-driven approach is necessary in the case of children because they’re unable to communicate the difficulties they face and because the majority of abuse occurs privately, in the home. But experts say that big data analysis and utilization is a supplementary method for solving problems and that it’s useless without a major expansion of welfare funding and workers who can ensure that at-risk children are kept safe. Even though the number of newborns is on the decline, the vast majority of child welfare services are provided on a passive and selective basis, only available to those who can “prove” their poverty. In 2018, the government earmarked 5.95 trillion won (US$4.91 billion) for children and teenagers, and 5.37 trillion won (US$4.43 billion), or 90.3%, was spent on education for preschoolers, elementary school students, and middle school students. Most of the remaining 5.74 trillion won (US$4.74 billion) was spent on childcare, leaving around 240 billion won (US$198.17 million) for children and teenage welfare, juvenile law, and child abuse prevention programs.

“Because of the shortage of childcare workers, they set a cap on the number of children who are need in help and gave that list to local governments. It isn’t enough to find at-risk children; there has to be someone to manage their cases [providing support to the family and so on],” said Chung Ik-jung, a professor of social welfare at Ewha Womans University.

“Currently, there’s no way to enforce case management or home visits for child protection. Perhaps we ought to consider having parents provide advance permission for home visits when they apply for childbirth allowance, child-rearing allowance, or childcare subsidies,” Chung added.

The issue of at-risk children is rooted in the various challenges that families face, such as poverty, domestic violence, and the breakdown of the family. More government action is needed to create an environment in which parents struggling with poverty and isolation, as well as parents with little in the way of social capital, such as Han, the North Korean defector, can give their children a proper upbringing. That explains the urgent need for meaningful measures that guarantee a life of human decency, such as relaxing eligibility requirements for the basic livelihood allowance, to make it easier for members of vulnerable groups to take shelter in the safety net of last resort.

By Park Hyun-jung, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]