Nearly 85 percent of children reported from domestic violence situations were sent back to their homes without measures to protect them, a report showed Sunday.

According to the report by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, of the 31,804 reported cases of child abuse at home in 2021, 84.6 percent of children were returned to their families of origin where they had suffered abuse and were likely to face mistreatment again. Only 14.5 percent of the children were separated from their families and placed with other relatives or in facilities.

Of the perpetrators, 83.7 percent were parents and 4 percent were relatives. In terms of location, 86.3 percent of the victims were abused at home.

The number of child abuse cases has nearly doubled from the 22,367 cases reported in 2017 and continues to rise as awareness of the importance of reporting child abuse has grown.

However, due to a lack of proper management after returning abused children to their homes, the incidence of child abuse continued to rise. In 2021, 5,517 cases of recurring abuse were reported, accounting for 14.7 percent of all child abuse cases reported that year. The rate of repeated abuse among all child abuse cases also increased from 11.4 percent in 2019 to 11.9 percent in 2020.

Despite the risk of reoccurring abuse, children are often returned to their families of origin due to laws that prioritize the protection of original families.

The Korean Children's Welfare Law, as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, stipulate that children in care facilities should be returned home to one or both parents whenever possible.

Calls have been growing for the government to offer protective measures to prevent repeated child abuse in the home, including constant monitoring and counseling. In South Korea, an average of 38 children died of domestic violence each year from 2017 to 2021. Currently, perpetrators in less than half of child abuse cases were sued in 2021. Only 2 percent of such cases resulted in criminal punishment.