Child Abuse

[Anchor Lead]

Child abuse remains rampant in schools for children with special needs. One such school has been found to have more cases of child abuse than was previously disclosed. However, the education authorities failed to uncover any problems when evaluating the school.

[Pkg]

Lim Eun-kyung has a 13-year-old child who studies at Seoul Inkang School, a school for children with special needs. Last year the school's social worker pulled the child's ear, causing severe bruising. At the time, the child's homeroom teacher and the social worker apologized for the incident and promised to prevent similar incidents from occurring again. However, that was not the case.

[Soundbite] Lim Eun-kyung(Parent) : "It's heartbreaking that they did it again even after I forgave them."

A survey conducted by the Ministry of Education has done little to improve the situation. The results of a survey on human rights violations conducted by the ministry in two schools for children with special needs two months ago said that there were no particular problems. That's because the survey was conducted in the form of interviews, but most of the students have difficulties communicating due to their disabilities. Moreover, private schools for children with special needs tend to have a low turnover rate for teachers.

[Soundbite] (Parent) : "No one reported violations whatsoever. There are no whistleblowers. Otherwise the teachers would not be able to stay there for so long."

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education rushed to introduce countermeasures by opening a school violence report center for students with disabilities and promising to conduct investigations in cooperation with parents and human rights groups.

[Soundbite] Kim Jung-seon(Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education) : "We have finished basic discussions with human rights centers for the disabled, parents of children with disabilities and civic groups."

However, parents are urging the authorities to replace private schools for children with special needs with public ones. Education Minister Yoo Eun-hye said the government is considering making Seoul Inkang School public.