A mother who strangled her disabled daughter to death has been put on trial.The Daegu Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday that the 38-year-old mother confessed to killing her 11-year-old daughter because it was “difficult for her to bring up a challenged child.” (123RF)The night before her crime, the mother went out for a drink. She returned home near 3 a.m. and strangled her daughter to death at around 4 a.m. The woman had divorced her husband many years ago. Her daughter had a congenital secon

Social Affairs April 5, 2016

Questions regarding relationship history and status are discriminatory in a job interview, according to a fresh report from a Seoul City human rights ombudsman, Tuesday. The report came in recognition of the claims of a human rights violation at a civil servant employment interview held in December 2015. (123RF)At the time, an interviewer had asked a female applicant whether she was married and if she had ever been in a romantic relationship. He also wanted to know the duration of her longest se

Social Affairs April 5, 2016

The 19-year-old Vietnamese mother who had discarded her dead newborn at a subway station a week ago, had no idea that her action was a criminal offense in Korea, the Uijeongbu Police said. The teenage mother had always been interested in Korean culture. Upon graduating from high school, she enrolled in a Korean language program in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul.  Surveillance camera records helped the police in identifying the woman. (Yonhap)Her trouble began when she found out after registering in t

Social Affairs April 5, 2016

A man was arrested early Tuesday morning for hitting a prostitute, claiming she had not kept her end of the bargain. According to the Busan Seobu Police, the 69-year-old man surnamed Kim had seized the 64-year-old escort, surnamed Lee, by her hair and slapped her across the face in a motel room. (123RF)Kim was arrested by the police while carrying out the act. They had arrived at the scene following reports of a woman screaming. Kim told the police he had paid Lee 250,000 won ($220) for a “long

Social Affairs April 5, 2016

Police are seeking an arrest warrant for a man who registered a fictitious child to pocket government subsidies. According to the Busan Gijang Police, the suspect, a 35-year-old man surnamed Lee, reported a nonexistent child as his son in 2009 in order to receive state support for child rearing. The total sum he gained through the false report came to 7.7 million won ($6,600). (123RF)Lee hatched his plot when he helped his father register a son by another woman. In the process, he fabricated the

Social Affairs April 5, 2016

The father who neglected his son as he was abused and killed by his second wife had booked a vasectomy reversal surgery in hopes of getting a new son with the same name, according to the prosecution Tuesday.  “I believed Won-young (the son) would be born again through my second wife’s body. I was going to give the new baby the same name,” said the 38-year-old father surnamed Shin. The 38-year-old Shin wanted vasectomy reversal after his abused son's death. (Yonhap)According to the Prosecutor’s O

Social Affairs April 5, 2016

Five restaurants that cater to Chinese tourists out of 15 investigated by Seoul Metropolitan Government were found to have violated sanitation regulations. Out of the examined restaurants, three had employees that did not submit medical reports, one had kitchen staff without sanitary hats, while another had unhygienic cutting boards, the city government said Monday.  Chinese tourists in Seoul (Yonhap)These restaurants failed to meet up to 26 standards out of 36 regarding hygienic cooking utensil

Social Affairs April 4, 2016

Jeong Woo-hyun, the chairman of MPK group, came under fire Monday for allegedly slapping a building’s guard because he had sealed the front gates with Jeong still inside the building.  Jeong Woo-hyun, the chairman of MPK Group (Yonhap)The incident has gone viral in Korea. It has become known as the “Mr. Pizza assault case,” named after MPK’s well-known pizza brand, Mr. Pizza.Although shocking, a businessperson mistreating others is nothing new in Korea. Here are some infamous incidents:  Lee Hae

Social Affairs April 4, 2016

Seoul National University, one of Korea‘s leading universities, needs to spur efforts to further internationalize if it wants to rise in global rankings, the SNU board of trustees said Monday. On Monday, a team of 12 SNU researchers headed by professor Ye Sung-joon of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, submitted a project report that analyzed the number of joint international research initiatives conducted by SNU and its implications in global university rankings.The fron

Social Affairs April 4, 2016

A police officer was sprayed with a corrosive chemical solution, currently presumed to be hydrochloric acid, at Seoul Gwanak Police Station, Monday morning, by a woman who visited the station to file a civil complaint. (Yonhap)Police said the woman, surnamed Jeon, 37, assaulted an officer of the Cyber Investigation Team on the third floor of the police station at around 8:45 a.m.The attacked officer, surnamed Park, was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. In the process of restraining the w

Social Affairs April 4, 2016

A man posing as a woman in order to prompt obscene messages from people he met online and blackmail them was arrested Friday, according to Busan Saha-gu Police. In December 2015, a sexually suggestive offer was posted to controversial online hook-up site and den of sexual deviancies Sora.net. “Swear at me. I like being talked down to. I’ll sleep with those who send me their naked photos, ‘first-come, first-served.’ If you have any wits you’ll figure out how to reach me,” a post written from an a

Social Affairs April 1, 2016

A Vietnamese woman was arrested on Friday for disposing the body of her dead newborn at a subway station in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. “I thought if I leave the body in a subway station, one of many passing people would find him and give him a funeral,” said the 19-year-old mother in her testimony to the Uijeongbu police. The woman, on CCTV recording. (Yonhap)The woman enrolled at a university in Korea in January as a language school student. At the time of her arrival, she was six months pre

Social Affairs April 1, 2016