32 Child-Related Institutions in Gyeonggi-do Do Not Conduct 'Employee Criminal Background Checks'

Gyeonggi Provincial Government

An audit by Gyeonggi Province revealed that 32 employment-restricted institutions related to children in the Gyeonggi area failed to check criminal records before and after hiring employees.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 26th that it conducted a special audit from the 1st to the 14th of last month to verify the appropriateness of criminal record checks at employment-restricted institutions, uncovering five cases of improper handling and identifying three areas for system improvement.

Among the major findings, Office A hired 55 people from last year until October this year but failed to check the criminal records related to sex crimes and other offenses before employment for 27 of them, resulting in a warning.

Among the 18 institutions supervised and managed by Gyeonggi Province, it was found that criminal records related to employment were not checked before hiring for 77 people, and for 63 people, the checks were delayed from at least 1 day up to 264 days after the hiring date.

There were also institutions that did not conduct the regular criminal record checks required after hiring. Two institutions were found to have failed to check criminal records because they were unaware of amendments to the relevant laws.

Current law restricts individuals with a history of sex crimes, child abuse, elder abuse, or disability abuse from operating related institutions or being employed or effectively providing labor for a certain period (within 10 years).

Based on the audit results, Gyeonggi Province has prepared or plans to propose to the government system improvements including ▲improving procedures for handling criminal record checks ▲revising central government ministry project guidelines ▲expanding the scope of employment-restricted institutions under the Youth Sexual Protection Act.

First, Gyeonggi Province proposed improving the work procedure so that the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which currently conducts criminal record checks by each task, will centrally manage the process by creating official documents and delivering them to the province.

Additionally, although related laws exist, there have been cases where criminal record checks were not conducted because they were omitted from central government ministry project guidelines; Gyeonggi Province requested alignment of these guidelines.

Furthermore, it was pointed out that the current Youth Sexual Protection Act does not include youth organizations and sexual violence victim counseling centers among institutions where individuals with sex crime records are prohibited from operating or working, and a revision will be proposed.

Lee Hee-wan, Gyeonggi Province’s Chief Auditor, stated, "We have taken administrative actions against negative cases to ensure the legality of institution operations under Gyeonggi Province’s jurisdiction and identified improvements for unreasonable and inefficient tasks. We plan to disseminate the audit results to relevant departments and municipalities so that employment-restricted institutions under their jurisdiction will also conduct self-inspections."

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