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| An Audi sedan, in which a 10-year-old girl and her parents were found dead, is raised from waters in Wando County, South Jeolla Province, June 29. Police concluded that the parents took sleeping pills and plunged the vehicle into the water to kill themselves and their daughter. Newsis |
Economic hardship biggest reason behind tragic decision: research
By Ko Dong-hwan
The number of murder-suicides committed by Korean parents against their young children is rising as a tragic new social concern, prompting experts to urge the government to come up with safety nets to protect vulnerable families.
In one of the latest incidents in late June, a family of three was found dead inside their sedan that plunged into the waters of Wando County in South Jeolla Province. A police investigation found traces of sleeping pills inside their bodies and concluded the parents had acted to kill themselves and to take the life of their 10-year-old daughter. Authorities also found the family from Gwangju was suffering from financial hardship.
On July 25, a Seoul district court sentenced a 44-year-old woman to 20 years in jail and a 10 year employment ban from working with children for strangling her two sons, aged 9 and 10, to death in the city's Geumcheon District in April this year. Suffering from economic hardship resulting from her husband's huge debt, she killed her children and then attempted to kill herself three times. She turned herself in to police two days after the murders.
The number of people taking the lives of their children and their own accounts for only a small percentage of the overall suicides in the country. According to records from 2013 to 2017, there were 269 deaths of parents who killed their children ― 0.44 percent of the overall suicides during the period.
The figure translates to 0.11 for every 100,000 members of the population. It is difficult to compare internationally as only few countries have official statistics in this regard. According to state-run TV broadcaster KBS, the Netherlands compiles such statistics and the figure is 0.05 for every 100,000 members of the population, leading experts to believe that the rate in Korea is relatively high.
Other data from the state-run Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice show that the number of deaths in murder-suicides ― including cases of attempted suicides ― from 2000 to 2019 was 426 and that 58 percent of those deaths were of a murdered spouse or child.
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The issue has become a flashpoint after experts have pointed out that the country has been neglectful in keeping records of murder-suicides and preparing precautionary measures.
Experts say that the top cause was chronic economic hardship ― more frequent than feeling despair and encountering a financial problem ― and many of the parents couldn't bear the thought of their children being left alone and helpless after the parent's suicide.
The Korean courts also have been handing out lighter sentences to parents who kill their child, which could have contributed to the increase of murder-suicides. During the past decade, 29 people in the country were indicted for killing their children and attempting to kill themselves. Only five of them received a penalty generally considered "heavy" ― prison terms of 16 years or longer ― and four of them received suspended penalties.
The courts saw the parents' "remorse" as a reason for reducing the severity of their punishments. Experts say such decisions by judges are problematic, adding that their point of view is more aligned with the murderers than the victims.
Parents' recognition of their children as their "property" in Korean society is considered another reason behind the high number of murder-suicides, according to experts.
"Parents, no matter how desperate the situation they are in, don't have the right to control the lives of their children," said an official from international NGO Save the Children. "The core problem is that they don't see their children as independent human beings."
The official also referred to examples in advanced countries where the killing of children is dealt with seriously and, upon identification of parents' motivations, preventive measures are actively devised and introduced.
"We need to start building a database accounting for these deaths and use it as a basis to set up a safety net of our own," said the official.
