Last week’s arrest of a man who mutilated his dead son‘s body divulged gaping holes in Korea’s child protection system, as officials took belated measures to investigate the cases of children who have missed school for prolonged periods.

The ruling Saenuri Party on Tuesday said that it is pushing to conduct an investigation into all 220 elementary school students who have missed school for three months or more without a specific reason given.

This comes in response to a case uncovered last week of a 34-year-old man in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, who allegedly abused his 7-year-old son to death, then mutilated and stored the body in a freezer, where it remained from November 2012.

He denied killing the child on purpose and was charged with manslaughter, desecration of a dead body and violation of child protection laws. His wife, who deliberately did not report him, was arrested for violating child protection.

The case demonstrated the lack of a safety net for children who may be facing abuse. While officials advise teachers to report possible abuse by parents to the authorities, the manual lacks details about specific measures they should take.

The Education Ministry last month announced that it would revise the teacher manual to allow an individual teacher to visit a student‘s home to check if an instance of abuse had occurred. 

Last year, an 11-year-old girl had escaped the clutches of her abusive father by climbing down a gas pipe. The girl was 120 centimeters tall and weighed just 16 kilograms, suffering from severe malnutrition.

Current regulations state that a school is mandated to send a notification to the parents if a child misses school for one week or more, after which the case is reported to the community center and subsequently to the Education Ministry.

If the period reaches three months, authorities are no longer mandated to keep tabs on the student.

An official from the Gyeonggi Province Ministry of Education said there is no way for an administrative body to forcibly request the whereabouts of a student if the parents of the child refuse to communicate or cooperate.

The elementary education law states that those who deprive a student of the right to mandatory education be subject to a fine of 1 million won ($830) by the education superintendent of the area.

But so far, not one person has been fined for such a case, despite hundreds of students missing school without an apparent cause given.

Oh Seung-hwan, a professor of social welfare at Ulsan University, said that there needs to be system to force parents’ hands on possible abuse. He also called for deployment of child experts at schools with the power to intervene on such cases.

The Korea Federation of Teachers’ Associations said the country needs to mandate parents of students missing school to consult the teachers, and also implement punishment on those who refuse.

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)