A Decision to Leave Together
Parents give birth to their children. Caring, educating, and providing proper means of living are their duties and rights. Parents’ values have a lot of influence on the process of their children growing up. Therefore, we often face serious problems caused by parents who view their children as their property, not living beings with unique personalities: neglection, abuse, and even murder continue to rise. Do parents have the absolute right to control their children’s lives?
Earlier this year, in May, a family of an elementary school girl went missing in Wando-gun. The police released a photo of the girl, Cho Yu-na, one of the missing family members. Cho Yu-na’s homeroom teacher reported the family’s disappearance because the child did not return to school after a family trip. With the media’s interest, a police investigation began to search for them. After a month, the family of three was found in their car that had been extracted from the sea. The autopsies done by the National Institute of Scientific found that sleeping pills were detected in the bodies of the deceased daughter and parents. Considering the fact that they traveled to Wando-gun several times a week before their disappearance, the incident appears to have been deliberately planned by the parents who were suffering from 100 million won in credit card debt: Cho’s parents could not overcome the weight of money, and had killed their daughter before committing suicide themselves.
Suicide After Murder in Korea
According to a research report by Park Ki-hwan, a professor of the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Korea, from 2013 to 2017, 269 people, 0.44 percent of the total number of suicide deaths in Korea, belonged to the category of “suicide after murder.” “Homicide-suicide” is a term that refers to the simultaneous occurrence of murder and suicide by the same person. Suicide after murder is categorized into four categories, according to the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. “Spousal Homicide-Suicide” targets spouses or lovers, “Filicide-Suicide” targets children, “Family-Suicide” targets family members excluding spouses and children, and “Extra family Homicide-Suicide” targets non-family members.
Among the four types, “Filicide-Suicide” accounted for 30.4 percent of cases over the past five years, the second largest after “Spousal Homicide-Suicide.” The National Center for the Rights of Children began investigating “Filicide-Suicide” in 2018 by including it in the causes of child abuse death. In 2018, 25 percent of child abuse deaths, 21 percent in 2019, and 27 percent in 2020 were those murdered by parents who decided to commit suicide afterwards.
The Influence of Family Tragedy as a Crime
People decide to commit suicide when faced with an overwhelming degree of tragedy. In Korea, mental health has been listed as a main cause overall. Although relationship problems, such as conflicts with family and diseases, are largest cause within “Filicide-Suicide” cases, mental health problems are arising as well. The feeling of depression is common, and anyone can feel it in their daily lives. However, it is difficult for an individual to overcome the disease related to depression alone without proper help. In the case of “Filicide-Suicide,” 72 percent of suicide deaths found suicide warning signals due to mental health problems, but only 21 percent had a history of treatment. Another cause is economic problems, such as debt and bankruptcy. In particular, in the case of murdering children and other family members before committing suicide, causes related to the difficulty of livelihood were prominent.
Compared to other suicide cases, the reason why we should pay more attention to “suicide after killing children” case is because of its diverse negative effects that it can have on our society. First, the mental damage felt by the people around the case is severe. In the most common types of cases, parents who kill their children and then commit suicide often leave personal messages with emotional expressions or requests to their neighbors. People around the culprit are often overwhelmed with guilt and loss over the fact that there were hints, but they were unable to help. Second, when a “suicide after killing children” case is reported in the media, there is a possibility of interest and imitation of the violence. In this case, it is not just a typical imitation crime, but it is also a problem that the sad story of the family is told in detail and the number of people who feel pity for the perpetrator’s parents increases. Finally, “suicide after child murder” is a serious murder against the victim’s will. The rights of human dignity stipulated in the Constitution in the name of protecting children who would be left alone are completely ignored.
Park Yong-chul, a professor from the School of Law at Sogang University, said, “The criminal law punishes parents who killed their children more lightly than the opposite. From the perspective of parents who commit so-called ‘companied-suicide,’ they commit extreme crimes to avoid leaving their children behind in the world. This is to forcibly deprive the child's most basic right to live as an independent person, of their parents’ will, not their child's will. This can never be ‘companied-suicide.’ We need a basic understanding that children are independent beings and are not part of their parents’ properties.”
Efforts to Handle Properly
There are not many countries that distinguish not only the case of “suicide after killing children,” but also the case of killing and committing suicide of others through individual statistical data. Related previous studies conducted in South Korea were also carried out through the analysis of each case dealt within the media. Experts speak in unison about the need for active statistics on “suicide after murder” crimes.
Along with supplementation in the academic sector, efforts are also in need to solve “suicide after killing children.” First of all, society should refrain from using the commonly used expression “companied suicide.” It is a method of expressing tragedy in the shoes of the perpetrator’s parents. This gives legitimacy to the crime of murder because the public is excessively immersed in the tragic story.
Yoo Hyun-jae, a professor from the School of Communications at Sogang University, said, “This typical response is part of our country’s unique old perspective and culture. The problem is that distorted collectivism, which has no exception to ‘death,’ is unconsciously or consciously established in our culture. When reporting such incidents, the media must adhere to the standards recommended for suicide reporting and take the tone of criticism for the slaying. The case in Wando-gun was the brutal murder of a nine-year-old girl who was irresistible by two killers.”
One of the characteristics of suicide crisis families is that they experience economic difficulties, so it is necessary to expand the government welfare system to protect the socially disadvantaged and vulnerable. However, it should be noted here that the difficulties faced by suicide crisis families are by far not only economic problems. In fact, even if a family is above middle class, they can still suffer from relationship and mental health problems. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a social safety net that can detect suicide crisis signals early.
Jung Jae-hoon, a professor from the Department of Social Welfare at Seoul Women’s University, said that schools are the most effective place to play the role. “Since current selective welfare in Korea takes priority over income standards, welfare blind spots are inevitable. Therefore, school social workers should be able to actively discover signals from crisis families by utilizing school social work in schools where underage children attend. It is necessary to establish a system that can detect, intervene, and support problems in the family to which a child belongs.”
Same Family, Different Individuals
Family is a part of society. The problems caused by children can have a bad effect on their parents’ lives, and the difficulties the parents experience can have a bad effect on their children’s emotions. If parents or families themselves are in a difficult position to overcome their tragedies, the state should come forward and help them. They should be able to correctly classify which problems the family has, and have a social welfare system that suits each. In particular, it is necessary to read the crisis of the family through children who will be placed in the position of the largest victim in this case. As soon as parents in the position of caregivers decide to face “death” together as a community because they cannot handle the crisis, the relationship between parents and children changes to relationship between perpetrators and victims. This is an obvious murder: parents have no right to kill their children.