Will there be more daycare centers that turn a blind eye to child abuse?

People gaped in shock at what they have seen. A CCTV clip captured the moment when a teacher violently slammed a 4-year-old child at a daycare center in Incheon. The teacher hit the child in the head as punishment for not finishing kimchi served with meal. The child was thrown to the classroom floor. Obviously, it was an act of child abuse.

It is common sense that a nursing teacher must not exert violence against a child no matter how bad the child acts. It has been quite long since physical punishment was banned at school. The victim child in the footage didn’t cry after being hit by the teacher, but hurried to sit in the correct posture and scraped the food she threw up. Other 10 children, her classmates, were panicked and knelt down with their eyes glued to the scene. This is the reason why the video gives an impression such violence was not just one time event. The police must launch a further investigation and thoroughly probe whether any similar physical abuse has taken place at this daycare center. If such violent acts have been frequent, and if the director of the nursery center turned a blind eye to it or tried to cover it up, the director and the teacher in question must be strictly punished under the Child Welfare Law and the facility must be closed.

According to a recent report released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Child Protection Agency, 8.7 percent (591 cases) of the confirmed child abuse in 2013 was made by personnel of child nursery facilities including a child welfare center. Among them, perpetrators in 202 cases were employees of daycare centers. It is strong evidence that there is a certain issue in screening and training of nursing teachers. A system that can disqualify and screen unqualified and less-trained teachers should be introduced. The Incheon daycare center where the incident occurred got 95.6 points in the evaluation and certification by the Korea Childcare Promotion Institute last year, proving a loophole exists in the evaluation system, which is carried out on 1 day visit and paper works. The evaluation system must be transformed to focus on prevention of child abuse, high quality meals and safe operation of school buses.

Under the newly introduced Nuri curriculum, the government financially supports not only national and public daycare centers but also private nursery schools by providing childcare subsidy. Across the nation, the number of daycare centers financially supported with tax amounts to around 44,000. Many parents are feeling uneasy whether such violent incident would take place in daycare facilities where their children attend. The child abuse case, which could have been unnoticed, was made public by a CCTV installed in the nursery. Although teachers are raising their voices against CCTV at workplace citing infringement on their human rights, how can we protect human rights of young children who can’t express their opinions, without CCTVs? It is inevitable to make it mandatory to install CCTVs at daycare centers to nip the bud of child abuse.