SOUTH KOREAN government is planning to disclose personal information about parents who refuse to pay child support.
Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said her ministry would seek possible measures to support children and adolescents from single parent families so that they could receive quality education and care.
"The Education Ministry plans to disclose the list of former spouses who do not pay child support as it is not simply a financial issue but an important matter that is closely related to a child's survival," Yoo said, according to a report in Korea Times.
There is already a website called Bad Fathers, disclosing the personal information of Korean men and women accused of refusing to pay child support.
It runs based on information given by former spouses, such as name, address, occupation, date of birth and even photos of them.
Complaints over privacy issues led authorities to act against the website operators but in January, the operator of the website was found not guilty of defaming the parents listed on the site.
Prosecutors at that time said the information posted on the website could hurt the reputation of the people who were listed on it.
They also argued that such information was not in the realm of public interest.
However, the final ruling by the court noted that the operation of the site did contribute to the public benefit by drawing attention to the hardships of the parents who did not receive the child support.
According to South Korea's Child Support Agency, which was launched in 2015, the child support fulfilment rate was only 36.6 per cent last year.
The Korea Times said the government then decided to promote the disclosure of the list of non-payers of child support.
It also plans to amend the Child Support Implementation Act to deal with non-custodial parents who do not regularly pay child support.