Rep. Lee Hyung-seok Proposes Amendment to Prohibit Child Abuse Parents from Claiming Support Rights

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Representative Lee Hyung-seok (The Democratic Party of Korea, Gwangju Buk-gu Eul) announced on the 16th that he has taken the lead in proposing the "Partial Amendment to the Civil Act" to prevent parents who have abused their children causing serious injury or neglected them and lost parental rights from later claiming support obligations from their children once they become adults.

Child abuse by parents continues unabated, escalating into a social problem.

When a parent commits excessive child abuse crimes, the prosecutor petitions the court to revoke parental rights. If the court determines it is an abusive household, it strips the parents of their parental rights and appoints a guardian to act on behalf of the minor.

This is because the parents have abandoned their duty to support their children.

In the case of the "Changnyeong Child Abuse Incident," the parents are also expected to have their parental rights revoked, and a guardian will be appointed for the victim child. The problem is that even if the abusive parents lose their parental rights, once the abused child becomes an adult, they are still obligated to support the abusive parents regardless of their own wishes.

This is because under the current Civil Act, children have a duty to support their parents no matter how severe the abuse was.

Accordingly, if the abusive parent cannot maintain their livelihood through their own resources or work, they can file a lawsuit to claim support payments from their adult children.

Reflecting this, recently there has been an increase in lawsuits filed by parents who abused their children while they were minors and then abandoned them, demanding that the children fulfill their support obligations.

Representative Lee said, "For the abused party, this would be a horrific experience they do not want to recall," and added, "Even if the child has the financial means to support the parent, it is not appropriate to impose unconditional support obligations on children whose parents abused them in the past and never fulfilled their own support duties."

He continued, "It is necessary to protect people from suffering unreasonably through legislation that reflects the changing values regarding support obligations in this era."

Meanwhile, 16 lawmakers including Roh Woong-rae, In Jae-geun, Lee Hae-sik, Wi Seong-gon, Song Gap-seok, Lee Yong-seon, Hwang Un-ha, Kim Kyung-man, Min Hyung-bae, Moon Jin-seok, Lee Yong-bin, Seo Dong-yong, Lee Byung-hoon, Lee So-young, Kim Nam-guk, and Yoo Jung-joo participated as co-sponsors of this partial amendment to the Civil Act.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.