'Marriage Hell' Child Sexual Abuse Controversy... Police Begin Investigation Before Indicting Stepfather

If Evidence of Criminal Charges Emerges, Case Will Be Formally Investigated

MBC entertainment program 'Oh Eun-young Reforce - Marriage Hell'./Photo by MBC

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoon Seul-gi] MBC entertainment program 'Oh Eun-young Report - Marriage Hell' (Marriage Hell) has come under fire for scenes of child sexual abuse, and the police have launched a pre-indictment investigation against a man who touched his young daughter's body.

According to the police on the 22nd, the Women's and Juvenile Investigation Unit of the Jeonbuk Provincial Police Agency received a report the day before regarding a man, Mr. A, suspected of sexually abusing his stepdaughter, and began a pre-indictment investigation. A pre-indictment investigation is a stage of collecting information about the case, and if evidence of a crime is found, it will be converted into a formal investigation including the suspect's indictment.

The Jeonbuk Provincial Police Agency stated that there had been previous reports filed against this family and that they plan to carefully consider whether to initiate an investigation.

Earlier, the episode of 'Marriage Hell' aired on the 19th had been embroiled in controversy over child sexual abuse. The broadcast featured Mr. A, who is in his first marriage, and his wife who has a 7-year-old daughter from her previous marriage, showing conflicts over child-rearing issues and personality differences.

The problematic scene involved Mr. A engaging in excessive physical contact, such as poking the child's buttocks under the pretext of 'injection play.' The child expressed dislike for Mr. A's physical contact, but Mr. A ignored this and continued the contact. The broadcast explained the stepfather's behavior as an expression of affection, but many viewers pointed out that it was child sexual abuse.

Subsequently, the MBC production team deleted the problematic scenes from the replay. However, protests demanding the cancellation of the program and other complaints against MBC surged, and eventually, MBC issued an official apology on the 21st, the following day. MBC stated, "We focused only on analyzing the couple's problems and failed to carefully monitor scenes that could cause concern among viewers," adding, "We have no excuse as we received criticism about the program after the broadcast."

They continued, "We deeply apologize once again for not considering the child's perspective and causing concern to many people," and stated, "The production team and Dr. Oh Eun-young will continue to support this family and the child even after the broadcast."

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