아동·노인 학대에 대한 복지적 개입을 통한 학대재발방지 실효성 제고 방안

Abstract

Since the Ac on The Prevention of Domestic Violence and Protection of Victims 1997 and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Crimes of Domestic Violence 1997, the state intervention into child abuse and elderly abuse, which used to be deemed as domestic affairs, has been increasing, and the Child Protection Agency, whose role is to be replaced by the anti-child abuse officers to some extent, and the Elderly Protection Agency were established in 2000 and 2004 respectively. Despite these organizations’ endeavor, the cases of child abuse and elderly abuse have been increased so that the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes 2014 was enacted to deter child abuse and similar enactment has been under consideration in the field of elderly abuse. Having in mind the fact that the Child Protection Agency and the Elderly Protection Agency aim at protecting victims as social services agencies rather than punishing abusers and assisting criminal victims as criminological agencies, this paper analyses whether and how the effectiveness of these agencies’ intervention is laid out by relevant legislation, the purpose of which is to propose which legislative improvement shall be undertaken to promote the effectiveness of preventing child and elderly abuse reoccurrence through social work intervention by these agencies. The subject legislations of this paper for that purpose are the Child Welfare Act,d its regulation and directive, the Elder Welfare Act, its regulation and directives, and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes. To get an analysis criteria, with which to analyse the fitness and defectiveness of current anti-abuse services by these agencies, this paper fixes the desirable model anti-abuse services to remedy the damage caused by abuse and to prevent abuse reoccurrence with taking into consideration advanced studies and examples in advanced countries: For elderly, anti-abuse services are to refer the elder abused to various legal tools and social services for the promotion of their self-protection capabilities, and to have them access to civil, criminal and administrative remedies; For children, anti-abuse services are to promote parents’ capability to raise their children and, otherwise, to liaise the abused children to the third party carer in the case their parents being unable to appropriately care for them. Applying these criteria, this paper finds that anti-abuse services lack the competence to promptly intervene into non-criminal abuse cases, and appropriate legal mechanism to liaise the abused children to care services provided for to children in need in accordance with protection plan; In the case of elder abuses, anti-abuse services are not connected to legal tools and care services for empowering the abused elderly to protect themselves, whereas similar care services are provided for in the Child Welfare Act. Based on the analysis, this paper proposes that anti-abuse services shall aim at protecting the abused rather than punishing the abuser, that the services is to intervene into non-criminal abuses, and that anti-abuse services should effectively refer the abused to appropriate legal tools for self-protection and care services. This paper’s suggestion should be supported by following studies on the reform of the Child Welfare Act and the Elder Welfare Act.