A woman in her 30s who slapped a young boy on the back after he pushed and knocked over her 15-month-old daughter has been acquitted of child abuse charges in the first trial.
The Suwon District Court acquitted the woman, identified as A, who had been indicted on child abuse charges.
A was put on trial for using her left hand to strike the back of a two-year-old boy, B, once at around 6:40 p.m. in February of last year in the playroom of an unmarried mother's shelter in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.
At the time, Boy B was sitting on a slide when A's 15-month-old daughter pushed his back, seemingly to get him to move down the slide.
In response, Boy B grabbed both hands of A's daughter and shoved her hard, causing her to fall backward.
Investigations showed that A, who witnessed the scene, approached Boy B and struck his back.
Prosecutors indicted A on the grounds that her action constituted physical abuse, which damages a child's body or impairs their physical health and development.
However, the court ruled that A's behavior did not reach the level of physical abuse prohibited by the Child Welfare Act.
The court stated, "The area the defendant struck was the back, and the frequency was limited to a single time. Even looking at the CCTV footage, the intensity of the strike does not appear strong."
The court explained the reason for the acquittal, stating, "It is difficult to view the act of the defendant striking the victim's back once with her left hand as physical abuse, and there is no other evidence to acknowledge otherwise," adding, "The submitted evidence alone is not enough to conclude it was an abusive act."
Regarding this ruling, netizens reacted with criticism, leaving comments such as, "Then is Boy B guilty of school violence?" and "This doesn't seem like something that should have been indicted."
(Reported by Jung Da-eun, Video edited by Lee Eui-seon, Design by Yang Hye-min, Produced by SBS Digital News)
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