아동학대의 유형에 대한 새로운 정의

Despite the existence of legal grounds for the regulation of child abuse under current law, child abuse remains to be a serious social problem. The victims of child abuse often suffer long term consequences, namely psychological and mental damage, that are not manifested externally, especially if they do not originate from external physical or tangible forces. Although the majority of child abuse is being committed within the family, regularly by parents, the fact that criminal punishment for child abuse is negligible cannot only be explained by a policy that aims at minimizing family breakdown. Although the existing law provides for punishment by defining various types of child abuse including physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, etc., criminal sanctions against child abuse unrevealed physically do not work properly. This article presents a new classification of the different types of child abuse, namely “aggressive abuse” and “passive abuse”. These new definitions may contribute to the imposition of heavier criminal punishment in case of child abuse as they focus on physically or mentally serious consequences for the child victims. Acknowledging that criminal punishment is not the only and also not the best way to prevent child abuse, it is still necessary to raise criminal responsibility for child abuse.