Parents who kill newborns now face death penalty

Police last Tuesday search for the body of a two-day-old newborn suspected of being buried on a hillside in Gwangyang, South Jeolla. [NEWS1]

People who kill their newborns may now face the death penalty.

The National Assembly on Tuesday amended the Criminal Act to scrap the previous maximum sentence of 10 years for infanticide.

Infanticide and the abandonment of a newborn’s body are now subject to the same punishments as murder and abandonment of a corpse.

The minimum sentence for infanticide is now five years in prison, with a maximum of life imprisonment or death.

Punishments for abandonment of an infant's body was also raised from a maximum of two years in prison or three million won ($2,380) fine to three years in prison or a five million won fine, the same as for abandonment of a corpse.

However, people convicted of dumping the bodies of their own newborns face a maximum of ten years in prison or a maximum of 15 million won fine.

The revised bill will take effect in six months.

A total of 252 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill while eight abstained.

The legal revision comes amid public anger at the light punishments meted out for infanticide and abandonment of newborns' bodies, particularly after the recent discovery of the deaths of several unregistered infants, or "ghost babies."

Also on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare released a report on its review of over 2,000 unregistered children.

The ministry confirmed the deaths of 249 ghost children after conducting an investigation of 2,123 undocumented children born between 2015 and 2022.

The investigation was conducted from June 28 to July 7 after the Board of Audit and Inspection announced over 2,000 newborns were unregistered at birth.

Local authorities confirmed 222 deaths, while the police confirmed 27.

During their investigations, police detected signs of criminal activities in seven of the 27 deaths. These cases were handed over to the prosecution.

The seven cases include one in Suwon, Gyeonggi, where a mother of two newborns allegedly killed the babies and stored their bodies in a freezer from 2018.

A total of 814 ghost children cases are still under investigation, the ministry said.

The government promised to take measures to prevent such cases in the future.

The parliament last month passed a revision to the Act on Registration of Family Relationships stipulating that medical institutes register the births of newborns.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]