Seocho-gu Designates 180 'Child Guardian Convenience Stores' for 24-Hour Child Protection

‘Resident-Led Child Abuse Detection Team’ Links Child Guardians with 24-Hour Convenience Stores to Build a Community-Based Child Protection System... District to Provide Incentives Such as Good Seocho Coin Rewards and Certificates of Appreciation to Kind Convenience Stores

Seocho-gu (Mayor Jeon Seong-su) plans to designate and operate about 180 convenience stores that operate 24 hours a day within the district as ‘Child Guardian Good Convenience Stores’ starting this month.

The ‘Child Guardian Good Convenience Store Project’ designates convenience stores most frequently used by children, adolescents, and meal card users as reporting hubs for child abuse. By conducting monthly monitoring, the project aims to strengthen the prevention of child abuse and the resident-led discovery safety net within the community.

In particular, 24-hour convenience stores are located in various places throughout the district, making them easily accessible in crisis situations, and they have the advantage of being equipped with security systems such as CCTV.

The ‘Child Guardian Good Convenience Stores’ carefully watch over children who usually use the convenience stores, immediately report suspected cases of child abuse to the police, and reassure and safely protect children in danger inside the store until the police arrive.

To this end, the district will search for ‘Child Guardian Good Convenience Stores’ in the area throughout September through the ‘Resident-led Child Abuse Continuous Discovery Team’ Child Guardians, which has been operating since 2021. The Child Guardians, consisting of 36 members with two from each neighborhood, are currently promoting community child abuse awareness improvement activities such as child abuse prevention campaigns.

Child Guardians will attach ‘Good Convenience Store Stickers’ containing manuals for discovering suspected child abuse cases at the site to the ‘Child Guardian Good Convenience Stores.’ They will then visit the convenience stores at least once a month to conduct monitoring, including listening to any difficulties, and provide education to convenience store workers on specific reporting methods and procedures.

In particular, convenience stores with excellent cases will be awarded certificates of appreciation at the end of the year. Additionally, convenience stores that have received monitoring and education through Child Guardians will be provided incentives such as accumulating Good Seocho Coins.

Good Seocho Coins are a kind of good points issued by the district mayor and are virtual assets applied with blockchain technology.

Jeon Seong-su, Mayor of Seocho-gu, stated, “We will strive to create a ‘Happy Seocho without Child Abuse’ by establishing a community-centered, life-close child protection system with ‘Child Guardian Good Convenience Stores’ as reporting hubs.”

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