As the suicide rate rises among teachers in South Korea and sparks protests for their well-being, yet another teacher has become a victim.
On September 7, police announced that a female teacher in her forties died at a Daejeon hospital. She was fatally wounded after a suicide attempt two days before. What pushed the woman to her death has caused protests against the perpetrators.
In 2019, the teacher taught four students who “hit their friends or acted disruptively in class.” Taking her role as an educator seriously, she disciplined them. However, that didn’t go over well with the students’ parents.
Attacking the teacher’s character, the parents filed complaints against her for disciplining their children. They even went as far as reporting the teacher for child abuse.
In 2020, the teacher was cleared of all charges of child abuse. Unfortunately, the parents of the students only became more malicious in their attacks, repeatedly filing complaints to harass her. The bullying became so severe that the teachers’ union revealed she “received psychiatric treatment for a long period of time” to handle it.
After getting triggered by another teacher who had recently committed suicide due to bullying from parents, the teacher took her own life as well. Protestors are seeking justice for her and aren’t letting the bullies go free.
As a mom who raises three children, I feel bad for the teacher’s family and children… They lost a parent who must have meant the world to them.
— Song In Yeop, a teacher in Sejong
Protestors discovered that the parents who acted as bullies owned a beauty shop, kimbap store, and hapkido center. They took matters into their own hands by covering the businesses in messages of the parents being “murderers” and how much they “deserve punishment” for bullying the teacher.
Protestors have also taken to Instagram to reveal the identities and addresses of the parents and children who bullied the teacher to death.
Protestors continue to seek justice for the late teacher who was dedicated to doing her job.
