On June 18, at a Taekwondo studio in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
A Taekwondo instructor, surnamed A, grabs a running child aggressively and forces him down onto a mat.
Instructor A then grabs the child's legs with both hands, spreads them apart, and presses down heavily with his body weight.
Even as the child struggles in pain and signals for him to stop, the instructor does not let up.
The 7-year-old child suffered a fractured thighbone (femur) from the incident and is still unable to walk properly two months later.
[Victim's Parent: The emergency room doctor told me this. A child's bones bend, they don't just snap like this. They said that if it's fractured to this extent, child abuse is somewhat suspicious.]
It is reported that Instructor A explained to the victim's parents that it was part of a disciplinary process because the child was not focusing while preparing for a promotion test at the time.
In a phone call with SBS, Instructor A stated, "I did not force him to do the splits. It happened while I was holding his leg after the student flailed around during the coaching process."
Following a complaint filed by the child's parents, the police have booked Instructor A on charges of child abuse and launched an investigation.
[Victim's Parent: When I asked him how many times (this had happened before), he said about 11 times. He said he was so scared of doing the splits that he ran away.]
In 2024, at another Taekwondo studio in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, an instructor placed a 5-year-old child upside down inside a rolled-up mat and left the child unattended for 30 minutes, resulting in death.
Critics point out that Taekwondo studios, which are classified as sports facilities, should be subject to the Private Academy Act just like regular cram schools so that active measures can be taken against acts of child abuse.
[Cho Kihyun / Child Abuse Attorney: There is no direct legal basis to forcibly close down a studio or suspend its operations based solely on the act of child abuse itself. There isn't one.]
As Taekwondo studios are widely used facilities to fill after-school childcare gaps, specific supplementary measures appear necessary to protect children.
(Reported by Jung Ji-yeon, Produced by Choi Yun-seo, Camera Filming by Yang Ji-hoon, Video Editing by Shin Seeun, Design by Kim Yeji, Produced by SBS Digital News)
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