The horrible story of a child whose dismembered body parts had been kept by his parents for about four years exposed some serious social ills in this country.

The case of the 7-year-old boy who died in 2012 is still shrouded in mystery despite police investigators’ strenuous efforts to find clues since his father and mother were detained last Friday.

The most immediate questions are how the boy died, and why the parents, both in custody on court-issued warrants, kept the body parts in a frozen state for four years.

Police quoted the father, aged 34, as saying that the boy fell and suffered injuries while he was being dragged into the bathroom in October 2012. He said the boy was not given medical treatment for the injuries and died one month later, insisting that he did not kill his child.

But the news that the man allegedly dumped some of the body parts in garbage bags and the home toilet is enough to make you speechless. Police found the remaining parts at the home of the father’s friend, where he was hiding from police closing in on him.  

While it is the urgent job of police to find out exactly what happened to the boy, the case reminds us of how ill-prepared this country is to protect our children.

The boy started elementary school in Bucheon City in March 2012, but he stopped attending after about one month. Under the relevant rules, teachers sent a reminder to his parents twice -- which they had to do if students are absent for seven days -- and visited his home twice, but failed to meet the parents. Then the school notified the case to the local district office, which did not take due follow-up actions. Everyone did only the minimum required by the law.

Had any of teachers, district officials or relatives -- in other words, members of several communities the poor boy belonged to -- paid attention to the boy and his family, his innocent life could have been saved.

One thing that should be noted at this juncture is the tendency of Koreans to believe that children are personal possessions of their parents and that neighbors and acquaintances should stay out of someone else’s family problems. Given about 80 percent of child abuse cases involve parents, people’s mindset should change.

More importantly, there is a need to establish a flawless legal system in which authorities -- education, law-enforcement, local and welfare -- work together to detect and deal with cases of child abuse.

The importance of such a system was verified by none other than the recent Bucheon child case. The case might have not come to the fore unless authorities had launched an investigation into students who have been absent for a long time at all 5,900 elementary schools.

The nationwide inquiry was prompted by yet another grisly case in which an 11-year-old girl had been severely abused -- she weighed only 16 kg when rescued by authorities last month -- by her 32-year-old father, his girlfriend, and a female friend of the girlfriend. The girl, too, had been absent from school for two years. 

Officials said a preliminary investigation found that 220 students have been absent from schools for a long period of time, and that they have yet to visit the homes of 108 students.

Checking on the students is urgent, all the more considering that officials have already found eight suspected cases of abuse and could not ascertain the whereabouts of 13 students. The government could also do well to expand the probe to middle school students.

Protecting children is the duty of the government and communities that make up a civilized society. It is a collective responsibility, and blaming the parents will do nothing to fulfill this responsibility.