Elementary students` violence is not pranks

Young mothers in Seoul`s affluent Gangnam area are seething with a blog post by a mother of 10-year-old boy demanding that children who used violence against her autistic son.

She wrote: "After the incident, (my son) put preservatives on his hand and looked at them for a long while, before asking me, "We go to Heaven if we eat preservatives, right?` How did he possibly know what death meant? Why did the realities of a 10-year-old autistic boy become hell that made him leave this world?"

The third-grade elementary student ("Boy A" henceforth) played an arresting game with two of his classmates at school. Boy A who had Asperger`s syndrome, a mild form of autism, always played culprit, being pinched or kicked from behind by them playing cops. After Boy A told adults about the harassment, the inflictors took him to a restroom and torn off a part of his genital, Boy A`s mother claimed. If what she claimed is true, I cannot help calling the bullies "little devils," even though they are just 10 years old.

When the issue was taken to the school`s anti-bullying committee, the school took only light disciplinary actions against the alleged inflictors, saying that while they did play the arresting game and pushed the victim, it was difficult to proof that Boy A was bruised in the body or hurt in his genital. Refusing to accept the measure, Boy A`s mother has launched an online signature-collecting campaign for support. Now, the issue has become a matter of which side is telling the truth, as the parents of the alleged inflictors posted a rebuttal claiming that Boy A`s mother was spreading "unconfirmed rumors."

After a bullied teenager committed suicide in Daegu in 2011, the government announced a series of measures requiring that inflictors be transferred to other schools and have their deeds mentioned in their school records. However, the situation has changed little and even spread to elementary schools. Adults` attitude of considering elementary students` violence nothing but pranks among friends promote such violence. In the United States, a student who pushed a classmate to the ground would be subject to serious punishment. Although children`s brawls sometimes lead to fights between their parents, school violence is not a matter that should be hushed or ignored.