Human Rights Commission: "School Violence Perpetrators and Victims Should Not Attend the Same Upper-Level School"

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has expressed the opinion that it is necessary to coordinate so that perpetrators and victims of school violence do not advance to the same upper-level school.

On the 11th, the NHRCK announced that on the 26th of last month, it recommended to the superintendent of education of Region A and the Minister of Education to prepare measures to prevent cases where perpetrators and victims of school violence advance to the same upper-level school.

The NHRCK recommended that the superintendent of education of Region A prepare appropriate practical measures to protect victims of school violence and establish measures to prevent additional victimization, such as setting an appropriate timing for the transfer of perpetrators during the process of holding the School Violence Countermeasure Deliberation Committee. Furthermore, it emphasized to the Minister of Education to prepare guidelines, including revising the enforcement decree of the School Violence Prevention Act to prevent recurrence of human rights violations that occur when the term 'assignment' specified in the decree is interpreted as not applying to schools that recruit students through a 'selection' type, such as non-standardized schools.

According to the NHRCK, complainant student B was subjected to school violence by a classmate in the same school during the second half of the third year of middle school. Subsequently, the Region A Office of Education held a School Violence Countermeasure Deliberation Committee and transferred the perpetrator to another middle school around the time of the middle school graduation ceremony. However, the victim and the perpetrator had already been admitted to the same non-standardized general high school before the school violence occurred. Student B filed a complaint, arguing that the transfer order could not be considered a protective measure for the victim.

The Region A Office of Education explained, "Even if the victim and perpetrator have graduated from middle school, they still belong to the middle school until entering high school, so the decisions of the deliberation committee must be implemented while they are enrolled in middle school." They added, "The meaning of 'assignment' specified in the enforcement decree of the School Violence Prevention Act applies only to standardized schools where admission is determined by residential area, and the high school where the perpetrator and victim are scheduled to enroll is a non-standardized school with a selection admission process."

The NHRCK judged, "The education office should have adjusted the timing of the perpetrator's transfer to after high school admission or at least notified the deliberation committee's decision to the high school where the victim and perpetrator were scheduled to enroll to prevent both students from entering the same school," and stated that "this infringed on the victim's human dignity and right to pursue happiness." It further pointed out, "There is a need to revise the relevant provisions as soon as possible so that they can also apply to non-standardized high schools with selection admission processes," and "until the related laws are amended to prevent damage caused by these provisions, guidelines should be prepared and delivered to frontline educational institutions."

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