아동에 대한 정서적 학대행위의 형사처벌에 관한 소고

Abstract

Recently, teachers' disciplinary behavior at the school site has been recognized as emotional abuse, and criminal justice cases have occurred repeatedly, raising the question of how to distinguish between discipline and abuse. This is because, in the case of emotional abuse, even if it is conducted for the purpose of discipline with the fundamental ambiguity and abstraction of the term, the teacher's words or actions toward the child can be regarded as emotional abuse because they affect the child emotionally in some form. This confusion is being raised because the law does not clearly define the concept of child abuse and does not even describe examples of detailed types of abuse. Moreover, this phenomenon is intensified by 「Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes」 enacted on January 28, 2014, which considers prohibited acts under 「Child Welfare Act」 as child abuse crimes. In particular, in the case of emotional abuse, unlike in the case of physical and sexual abuse, the limitations of neglect are not clear due to its own ambiguity and abstraction, and this phenomenon is more prominent.
 Accordingly, this paper first examined precedents, academic attitudes, and major foreign legislation on the standards of criminal punishment for emotional abuse as a type of child abuse crime. And based on this, a concrete plan for reorganization of criminal punishment regulations on emotional abuse was proposed to reasonably cope with emotional abuse. Also, in relation to the protection of teaching rights, the requirements for exemption from the discipline and guidance of guardians such as parents and teachers, which have recently been controversial, were presented.