A court has sentenced a mother to prison for leaving her two-month-old daughter home alone to drink with acquaintances, ultimately causing the infant's death.
According to legal circles on the 23rd, the 15th Criminal Division of the Suwon District Court (presiding judge Jung Yoon-seob) sentenced a woman in her 20s, identified as A, to two years and six months in prison and detained her immediately in the courtroom. She was charged with violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes (child abuse resulting in death) and other offenses. The court also ordered A to complete a 40-hour child abuse treatment program and imposed a three-year ban on employment at child-related institutions.
A was accused of leaving her two-month-old daughter, identified as B, alone at her home in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, at around 11 p.m. on March 29 and neglecting the child for about six hours. She was found to have left the house to drink with acquaintances.
B had never received a single vaccination since birth. After A returned home, the infant was immediately taken to a hospital for treatment, but died of acute pneumonia three days later on the 31st of the same month.
The court said, "The defendant admits the crime and is remorseful," adding that "the fact that she learned of her pregnancy after breaking up with her boyfriend and gave birth without being able to prepare for childbirth, that she had cared for the victimized child through acquaintances until the crime, and that she took appropriate measures such as calling 112 when the child showed abnormal symptoms are favorable circumstances."
However, the court pointed out that "it is difficult to say she raised the child properly, as she did not take sufficient hygiene measures, and she left a 52-day-old child in an inappropriate environment for about six hours for her own entertainment."
It further ruled that "the court took into account that the victimized child appears to have felt extreme pain while seeking care alone, without the defendant, who was the sole caregiver and guardian, until the child's death."
A was reported to have raised the child alone after breaking up with her former boyfriend, the child's biological father. As her situation of caring for the child alone with no one to help after childbirth was also cited as background to the case, the issue of care gaps for vulnerable households has again come to the fore.
