Worries about Adverse Effects of Government’s “Measures to Eradicate Daycare Center Child Abuse”
By Narang
Published: January 20, 2015
Translated by Marilyn Hook
“Since CCTV was installed, daycare teachers have been
saying, ‘Even at home it feels like someone is watching me,’ ‘I’ve started a
nervous habit of checking for CCTV wherever I go,’ ‘I don’t like going to
work.’”
As someone who currently works at a daycare center, Shim
Seon-hye, director of the Korean Public Service and Transport Worker Union’s
Childcare Association, continued, “Teachers who work at daycare centers where
CCTV has been installed say that they always feel burdened and like the back of
their neck is prickling.” She also criticized [pro-CCTV] government policies,
saying that such surveillance also violates the human rights of children.
Government planning to ‘make CCTV mandatory, strengthen
punishment of abusive teachers’
In the wake of the Incheon daycare center child abuse
scandal, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced its “Measures to
Eradicate Daycare Center Child Abuse” on January 16th.
The main points of the measures are that the installation of
CCTV will be made mandatory for daycare centers nationwide and that relevant
recordings from it be shown or made available to parents upon request, as well
as that it strengthens penalties so that if there is even one incident of
abuse, the daycare center will be closed and the center owner and perpetrating
teacher will not be allowed to establish or work in another center.
Wholly absent from these are the measures to combat the root
causes of daycare center child abuse suggested by civic groups: the expansion
of state-run daycare centers and the improvement of working conditions for
childcare workers.
The government has been trying since 2005 to amend the
Infant Care Act to mandate CCTV installation in daycare centers, but has been
unsuccessful due to opposition from human rights groups and some members of the
National Assembly.
The current attempt to do so appears to be indebted to the
media’s strongly advocating for CCTV installation after the Incheon daycare
center abuse incident. A petition posted on the petition message board of one
portal site, entitled “Mandate CCTV Installation at Daycare Centers
Nationwide,” has been signed by over 20,000 netizens.
The netizen who posted the petition wrote, “Because infants
and young children lack the language skills to describe cruel treatment,
[whether abuse has occurred] cannot be known without the confession of an
insider [at the present time],” and also, “Protecting the lives of infants and
young children is a more urgent matter than protecting the human rights of
daycare center workers.”
Of course it is true that children have the right to be safe
and abusive workers need to be punished. But can a society that gives little
thought to the human rights of childcare workers really protect the human
rights of children? And can installing CCTV cameras really ensure the safety of
children and stop child abuse?
“The kids ‘play
CCTV’”
More than 20% of daycare centers nationwide are already equipped
with CCTV. The stories that Director Shim told me about children’s behavior in
daycare centers that have CCTV were surprising.
“The kids ‘play CCTV.’ There are some kids who will make
something that looks like a telescope, go to where the other kids are playing
and say, “I’m a CCTV camera,” and just play that role all day.”
What this “game” shows is that children understand what CCTV
is and so of are aware that they are being watched.
Director Shim says, “When a teacher tries to say something
to discipline a child, the child will say, ‘My mom is watching all of this on
CCTV, so you can’t yell at me.’” In this way, CCTV gets in the way of fair
discipline and raises a wall of distrust between the teacher and student.
That’s not all. When the ability to view the footage is not
strictly limited, CCTV comes to be used for purposes other than exposing child
abuse. Unrestricted viewing can lead to conflict between parents and
discrimination and exclusion between children.
Children do a variety of things at certain ages, and if one
is not a [child development] expert it is easy for him or her to misunderstand
such things as “problematic behavior.” There are parents who watch the CCTV
footage and say unreasonable things like, “Please keep that child away from
mine,” and “He shouldn’t be allowed to come to this center.”
Also, when a fight breaks out between children, sometimes
parents want to resolve it by looking at CCTV footage instead of through mutual
discussion.
“The ‘victim’ child’s parents ask to see the footage, and
the ‘perpetrator’s’ parents don’t want to. They [the former] want to find the
cause of the fight through CCTV. They’ve already stopped listening to what the
teacher says about it.”
The root cause of child abuse will not be affected by
installing CCTV
If daycare workers oppose the installation of CCTV, people
say, “Why would someone on the up-and-up not want to?” and, “What’s wrong with
you?” But CCTV infringes on their authority as caregivers and their right to
privacy.
Director Shim says, “Everyone looks like a criminal on a
CCTV screen. You can’t do your work freely because you can’t be sure how each
expression you make will appear,” and added that it is stressful for childcare
workers to be treated as potential criminals.
CCTV also functions as an instrument of worker control.
There are cases in which center directors watch CCTV continuously to monitor
workers they don’t like. If the worker can’t be seen for a moment they will
interrogate the manager about where he or she went.
“As time goes by you kind of become numb to CCTV. If a
childcare worker has a good working environment they will continue to keep the
cameras in mind while working, but in a poor working environment they will
forget about them and end up treating the kids poorly anyway.”
When you consider the fact that the Incheon daycare center
at which the recent abuse incident occurred had CCTV, it seems clear that the
cause of child abuse has nothing to do with CCTV.
Despite this, many argue that such surveillance is necessary
if only to provide evidence after the fact. They point out that in the Incheon
case as well, they were able to find the truth because of CCTV. However,
Director Shim warns that, “If other steps are taken, CCTV is not necessary.
Trying to solve the childcare problem with CCTV and nothing else will only
cause bigger problems.”
What parents want is more government daycare centers
Gwon Ho-yeong (43), father of a 5-year-old who went to
daycare until 2 years ago and now attends kindergarten, says, “There is
violence whether or not CCTV is installed. CCTV is not a fundamental countermeasure,”
but adds, “Since there are [currently] no alternatives, having at least the
CCTV does make me a little less anxious.”
What Mr. Gwon really wants, however, is for “the government
to increase daycare centers.”
A few years ago, he intended to send his child to the
daycare center in front of the house to which he had just moved, but there was
no space, and for a month he scrambled. Finally, he had to send his child to a
center that was over 30 minutes away by bus.
A child must be put on the waiting list as soon as it is
born in order to barely get into a government daycare center [by the time it is
3 years old], and the competition at other daycare centers or at kindergartens
is approaching 20 children for every spot.
At present, government-run daycare centers make up only 5%
of daycare centers nationwide. At private centers that receive neither funding
nor worker oversight from the government, profit soon becomes important and the
treatment of workers suffers. It is natural that the quality of the care
declines.
Mr. Gwon says, “Private daycare centers make me nervous for
some reason. It’s good to offer daycare for free, but because it’s for free it
seems like (in order to make a profit) the treatment of the workers wouldn’t be
that good. The government needs to increase daycare centers to a sufficient
number.”
Like this, what most parents calling for more CCTV really
want is a trustworthy and safe place to leave a child. Because the government
doesn’t take responsibility for and monitor childcare, and passes on the worry
to individual parents, parents’ tendency to depend on surveillance systems like
CCTV grows greater.
Worries about “side effects” that cause mistrust and
conflict
 |
| The government is proposing CCTV as a countermeasure for school bullying and sexual assault as well. © Ilda |
The government suggesting the installation of CCTV as a way
to stop violence against the ‘socially powerless’ is actually not a new
phenomenon. It has also been proposed as a response to other forms of violence
such as sexual violence, school bullying, and [domestic] child abuse.
In the name of protection and safety, CCTV cameras are being
installed on backstreets and walking trails that are not crime-ridden. The
government has also promised that by 2019 it will stop school bullying by
installing 1-megapixel high-definition CCTV cameras in half of all elementary,
middle, and high schools. At this point they are acting like all violent crime
occurs merely because there is no CCTV in a certain area.
However, the link between CCTV and crime prevention has not
been proven. In Surveillance Society (Cheolsuwa
Yeonghui Press, 2012), coauthor Hong Seong-su, assistant professor of law at
Sookmyung Women’s University, pointed out that even in England, which is famous
for the prevalence of CCTV, the percentage of crimes that are brought to light
through CCTV is quite low: “They catch one crime per year for every thousand
CCTV cameras.”
In the end, experts agree that CCTV is not so much an
effective measure as it is a “for-show” one that brings with it worse side
effects.
Jinbo Network Center activist Jang Yeo-gyeong worries,
“Installing CCTV may instead backfire and constantly cause conflict between
parents and workers at childcare facilities.”
Finding a method that doesn’t violate the human rights of
either party must be prioritized, but the government is attempting to avoid
responsibility for the public sphere and is thus aggravating conflict between
parents, who must protect the weak (children), and care laborers (daycare
center workers), whose working conditions are inadequate, she says.
Jo Ju-eun of the National Assembly Research Service
criticized the government’s lackadaisical proposals, saying, “The government is
offering only solutions that are lazy and easy while having no effectiveness.”
She continued, “Familialism is strong in Korea, so there is
a lot of fear and anxiety about leaving your child with another person. ‘If you
leave your kid with a stranger they’ll give her sleeping pills’—in a society
where this kind of false rumor is spread, parents’ anxiety can only grow. But
isn’t it true that it’s not others’ children but your own child that you get
angry and annoyed with when life gets difficult? In fact, incidents like the
recent abuse scandal are extremely rare, and so the measures put forward by the
government is actually aggravating mistrust between people.”
Jo added, “Even in other countries that strongly value children’s
rights, it is hard to find examples of CCTV being installed in daycare
centers.”
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