Issue 20. Discovery of child abuse 64. In 2016, a child was killed in a case of child abuse which is commonly called ‘Wonyoung’s case’. The parents of the child victim abused her for about 3 months starting from November 2015, locking her up in the bathroom and spraying a disinfectant over her body, which resulted in her death in February 2016. Then, the parents buried her body in a hill. This child abuse case was discovered due to the preparatory meeting at elementary school. On the date of preparatory meeting at elementary school which is held before the date of entrance ceremony, the parents of a child who has received a school enrollment notice and is going to attend an elementary school visit the elementary school and submit the documents required for school enrollment. As the child and her parents did not show up at the elementary school concerned on the date of preparatory meeting, the school reported this to the police, which finally led to the disclosure of the child abuse case. 65. In response to this incident, the Government amended the Enforcement Decree of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in October 2016 to introduce some institutional improvements: for instance, in case a child is supposed to enroll in an elementary or middle school but fails to do so, the headmaster of the elementary or middle school should press the child’s guardian for the child’s enrollment and, when necessary, should call for cooperation from the chief of the police station concerned. The Government has adopted these institutional arrangements, in an effort to ensure that the schools, local education offices, police agencies and local communities confirm the safety of the children who fail to enroll in the school or show up at the preparatory meeting without giving any explanation or are absent from school for a long time and protect those children from abuse. The ‘e-Child Happiness Support’ that the Government has recently introduced to refer at-risk children in need of protection swiftly to welfare services by using big data is also intended to find child abuse victims at an earlier time: under this system, the information on health checkups, vaccinations and prolonged absence from school may be used to detect the children who are likely to need protection and the civil servants from the neighborhoods (eup, myeon and dong) may visit those children. The birth report system, which the Government plans to adopt, is also intended to prevent child abuse which may be caused by the failure to register birth. 66. However, it was revealed, in January 2019, that a child who did not show up at the preparatory meeting of elementary school was not classified as a child at risk in the ‘e-Child Happiness Support’, in spite of no official records about the child since the vaccination of May 2013. For earlier discovery and protection of children at risk of abuse, the relevant systems need to be not only well-established but also be fully utilized. 67. The Government should upgrade the existing relevant systems and increase their use, in order to ensure that actual cases of child abuse are discovered at an earlier time and the child victims are properly protected. 17