measures to prevent juvenile suicide. Youth Counseling (CRC/C/KOR/3-4, para. 115) 27. The Government provides counseling service to prevent and address a range of problems involving children and youth, such as sexual violence, violence at school and child abuse. However, the counseling personnel resource is too small for the large number of children and youth in need. For instance, with regard to the 1318 Help Call for Youth, a Government-run youth counseling service, some local governments fail to provide timely counseling service, as they cannot afford to employ specialized counselors due to the lack of budget. A report of the Gyeong-in Ilbo (dated January 8, 2011) revealed that, as of end-November 2009, there were 125 youth counselors in Gyeonggi Province while about 560 youths were on the waiting list. It means that those on the waiting list should wait 23 days on average before getting the counseling service. 28. The Government has appointed counseling teachers to schools who do not give class lessons but are exclusively engaged in student counseling, since 2005. For this purpose, the Government hired 119 counselors in 2008, 12 in 2009 and 99 in 2010, all of whom were appointed to public schools or education offices. Still, the school penetration rate of these counseling teachers is merely 5%. 29. The Government needs to clearly identify the current status of the children and youth counseling system and improve the operation of the system by, for example, expanding the counseling personnel. Furthermore, it needs to take actions to ensure that each and every school has a qualified counseling teacher who can provide useful counseling to students and help them with their school life. 3. Respect for the Views of the Child (Article 12 of CRC) (CRC/C/KOR/3-4, para. 88~93, 116~129 and 139; CRC/C/KOR/Q/3-4, para. 82-1) 30. In the Korean society, a common perception is that children are immature. According to the 2010 Diagnostic Study on Korean Youth's Core Capabilities by the National Youth Policy Institute, a large majority of the respondent students in middle or high school replied that 'Korean people tend to disregard children just because they are young' (73%) or 'they have a stereotype that children are too immature to make a right judgment' (77.2%). Only 18 % of the respondents gave an affirmative answer about the extent to which their participation is guaranteed. 31. The extent to which children participate in the process of making such decisions as affect themselves is low. For instance, the School Steering Committee, whose establishment is provided for in Article 31 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, is merely composed of the representatives from teachers, parents and community leaders, excluding the students of the school. Moreover, although the Government revised the law in March 2011 to provide that children's views should be reflected in the process of devising or revising school regulations and, in case of public schools, the student representative may be heard in the sessions of the School Steering Committee, the reality is that the students' participation in the process is no more than a formality, partly because the law provisions have no binding force and partly because of 8