South Korean babies found dead in freezer amid search for 2,236 'missing' infants
South Korean police have sought an arrest warrant for a woman accused of strangling two of her babies and storing their bodies in her freezer, in a case that observers say highlights the lack of support some mothers have in the country.
Authorities suspect there could be many other such cases after a government audit found a disparity between the reported number of infants born in hospitals and local registrations that must be made a month after birth for parents to access public health and childcare services.
Officials found that from the start of 2015 to the end of 2022, there were more than 2,000 babies who were not consequently registered. The total number of registered births during the eight-year period was 2.63 million.
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The data discrepancy has prompted officials to investigate hundreds of cases of missing babies for potential infanticides.
The two dead babies were found after auditors picked 23 random cases - about 1 per cent of the 2,236 babies born in hospital but not later registered - and asked local officials to ascertain if they were safe, said the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI).
"This serious murder case was uncovered in a mere 1 per cent blind sampling. Therefore, we are considering looking into all" the 2,236 infants to find out what happened to them, Yonhap news agency quoted a BAI official as saying.
Earlier this month, local government officials showed up at a home in Suwon City, 30km from Seoul. When a woman in her thirties who lived there - who has three other children aged 12, 10 and eight - did not allow police to enter, they sought a search warrant for her flat.
"I thought it would be difficult to raise them because we were having financial difficulties and I couldn't afford an abortion, so I killed them immediately after giving birth," she later told police, according to Yonhap.
The woman is suspected of strangling her babies soon after giving birth to them in hospital, in November 2018 and November 2019, and storing their bodies in a freezer, police said. She reportedly told her husband she had aborted the fetuses.
In 2019, South Korea ruled that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional, paving the way for legal abortions from 2021.
The procedure is allowed for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, or up to 28 weeks in cases of rape or economic difficulties. An abortion usually costs 100,000-200,000 won (US$77-154) depending on the duration of the pregnancy.
Abortion pills are also easily accessible over the counter while women require a prescription for morning-after pills.
Of the 21 other babies inspected, one died of malnutrition some 70 days after birth, another was left with an orphanage, while a third was allegedly adopted by unidentified foster parents. Police are also investigating this last case as a suspected murder, the BAI said.
The discovery of baby deaths come as South Korea faces a demographic crisis. Its fertility rate - the average number of children born to a woman in her reproductive years - is now 0.78, one of the world's lowest.
Lee Yoon-ho, a police administration professor at the Cyber University of Korea, said infanticides tended to occur when couples were not financially or mentally prepared to have children.
"It is necessary to systematically give lessons at schools on the information and responsibilities to conceive a baby and become a parent in the future," he said.
There have been previous instances of infanticide in South Korea involving bodies found in freezers.
In 2017, a 34-year-old woman was arrested in the southern city of Busan for the deaths of two babies who died through neglect after they were born in 2014 and 2016. She kept their bodies in a freezer at the home she shared with her boyfriend.
"I hid the bodies because I wasn't sure who fathered the babies and I was afraid that if my live-in boyfriend found out, he would break up with me," the woman surnamed Kim reportedly told police. She was later sentenced to two years in prison.
In 2006, a 37-year-old French woman living in Seoul was found to have killed two children she had given birth to in 2002 and 2003. Their bodies were found in the freezer by her husband when she returned to France for a holiday.
She was arrested there by police in 2006 and later sentenced to eight years in prison by a French court.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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