Medical staff and workers at general hospitals and welfare facilities for children will start to receive education on reporting cases of child abuse, the Seoul government said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that a revised Child Welfare Act has been endorsed by the Cabinet to obligate all such medical and welfare facilities to educate their employees on relevant regulations and other procedures in cases of child abuse.

A facility that fails to meet the requirement will be penalized with a 1.5 million won ($1,270) fine for the first offense and 3 million won for the second.

Currently, organizations in charge of child care and education, such as child care centers, kindergartens and schools, are required to conduct such education.

The government has been moving to step up measures against child abuse, in conjunction with an increase in legal actions being taken against the offenders.

A report by the National Child Protection Agency showed earlier this week that child abuse claimed 12 lives and more than 5,000 victims in the first half of this year, with the full-year death toll expected to surpass that of last year.

The report showed that 8 out of 10 cases of child abuse were perpetuated by parents and other close family members.

The first-half death toll from child abuse is 70 percent of the 17 deaths reported for 2014.

Of the 9,471 suspected cases of abuse, 5,432 were confirmed to have involved a child being physically, mentally or sexually abused. Officials said 388 other cases are being investigated at the moment.

“There has been a steady increase in child abuse cases and legal actions taken against offenders on the heels of growing social awareness and intolerance for such actions,” an agency official said.

In 2001, there were 2,105 cases of child abuse confirmed by authorities, but this rose to 5,581 cases in 2007 before reaching 6,791 in 2013 and spiking to 10,027 last year.

At the present pace, there is a chance that the total number of child abuse cases in 2015 will surpass last year’s total.

According to the report, 47.6 percent of child abuse cases involved the father of the child, followed by 29.8 percent for the mother, with stepparents or both biological parents accounting for the rest. Slightly over 6 percent of the abusers were teachers and day care workers, including those hired by kindergartens.

Of the kind of abuse endured by children, physical abuse ranked No. 1, followed by mental abuse, neglect and sexual abuse.

Of the all cases involving child abuse, legal action was taken against 27 percent of the offenders, up 12 percentage points compared to all of last year, it said.

From news reports