Man caught using mom's senior transit card, slapped with W18m fine
Seoul Metro said the man surnamed Kim used the card 414 times to commute between Kkachisan Station in western Seoul and Gimpo International Airport Station from March to July last year.
Senior transportation cards are issued to people aged 65 or older and allow free or discounted fares on public transit in major Korean cities.
A metro official at Kkachisan Station discovered Kim's illegal usage through data analysis and issued a fine totaling 18 million won — 30 times the standard fare for the 414 rides.
Under transit regulations, passengers caught evading fares must pay a surcharge amounting to 30 times the base fare. Failure to pay may lead to criminal charges.
Seoul Metro said it would hold fare evaders fully accountable through both civil and criminal actions in order to establish proper subway usage etiquette.
From 2022 to 2024, an average of 56,000 fare evasion cases were recorded annually, with fines exceeding 2.6 billion won during the three-year period.
In the first half of this year alone, about 27,000 cases were reported, resulting in 1.3 billion won in fines, Seoul Metro said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
14 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Lawyer warns of supply chain risks tied to forced labor in Korea and overseas
Despite being a developed country with strong labor protections on paper, South Korea continues to overlook forced labor practices both within its borders and in overseas supply chains tied to Korean companies, a public interest lawyer told a forum in Seoul on Thursday. Speaking at the forum 'Addressing Forced Labor in Global Supply Chains,' co-hosted by the National Assembly Labor Forum, the National Human Rights Commission and the Korean Bar Association, Kim Jong-chul, a lawyer and senior researcher at Advocates for Public Interest Law, stressed that Korea must act now to identify and monitor areas at risk of forced labor, or face growing international scrutiny. In South Korea, the issue of forced labor first gained public attention in 2014, when a man with a developmental disability escaped from a salt farm on an isolated island off the southwest coast of Korea where he had been subjected to years of abuse and exploitation. His escape led to a nationwide government investigation and multiple indictments. However, similar cases reemerged in 2021, with nearly identical patterns. Employers exploited vulnerable people, mainly those with disabilities and intellectual impairments, while posing as their guardians, providing shelter and food. In reality, they seized their ID cards, isolated them from outside help and subjected them to physical abuse, intimidation and debt bondage. In many cases, wages were withheld and victims were forced to work long hours without rest. 'Despite multiple prosecutions, few perpetrators were held accountable for forced labor,' Kim said. 'In 2014, only one of the many indicted was convicted specifically for forced labor.' The lawyer also criticized the government's failure to properly protect victims, noting that some who escaped or sought help ended up returning to the places where they had been abused. Adding to the problem is the lack of accountability for companies sourcing from salt farms, an issue thrust into the spotlight recently by a surprise US sanction on a Korean firm. In April, US Customs and Border Protection banned imports from Taepyung Salt Farm, one of Korea's largest producers, citing allegations of forced labor. The action followed a 2022 petition filed by Korean civic groups urging the US government to ban imports of Korean sea salt allegedly produced through forced labor. In response to the sanction, the Korean government emphasized that it had already implemented reform measures since the 2021 case, including conducting annual surveys on labor conditions at salt farms. Kim also addressed supply chain risks abroad. Citing his 2013 visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, he said he investigated forced labor at a local school where students and teachers were mobilized to harvest cotton and classrooms were converted into dormitories. That cotton, he said, was later used by Korean textile companies and by the state-run Korea Minting and Security Printing Corp. to produce banknotes, as part of government-supported investment projects. These products are openly sold in major discount chains run by Korea's largest conglomerates. Without a law banning imports of goods made with forced labor, he warned, Korea remains complicit in such practices through its supply chains. Furthermore, according to the lawyer, Korea itself produces seafood through forced labor. 'While there have been improvements compared to the past, the fisheries industry remains the sector most vulnerable to forced labor.' About 80 percent of workers on distant-water fishing vessels are migrant seafarers, Kim said. According to the international non-governmental organization Environmental Justice Foundation, many migrant workers in Korea experience passport confiscation, wages below the minimum standard and long working hours, he said. 'These human rights violations against migrant fishers are not merely a matter of poor labor practices — they are legal issues.' According to a 2023 report by international human rights group Walk Free, Korea imported an estimated $200 billion worth of goods potentially made with forced labor. Kim said that if the recently proposed Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Act is passed, it could help address the issue of forced labor to some extent. The bill, reintroduced in June by Rep. Jung Tae-ho of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, would require companies to assess potential human rights and environmental risks in their supply chains in advance and establish measures to address them.
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Korea Herald
Is it time for Korea to outlaw leaving children home alone?
Legal expert says law needed not for punishment, but to prevent tragedies A recent wave of deadly house fires involving children left home alone has reignited discussions in South Korea about introducing laws to prevent such tragedies. Two young sisters, aged 8 and 6, were killed in a fire that broke out in a sixth-floor apartment in Gijang-gun, Busan, at around 10:58 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Busan Fire Services. Authorities believe the fire began with an electrical malfunction near a standing air conditioner in the living room. The sisters died in the fire while their parents were out working at their restaurant late at night. The tragedy left the neighborhood in shock. 'Everyone knows the family. The parents have been running a restaurant here for years. My heart aches when I think about those little girls trapped in the fire. They were just trying to make ends meet, like any other parents,' said Kim Hyun-ok, 45, who lives in the same apartment building, in an interview with a local news outlet. Wednesday's fire came just nine days after a similar tragedy in the same city, where two sisters, aged 10 and 7, died while sleeping alone in their apartment. The incident occurred around 4:15 a.m. on June 24 on the fourth floor of an apartment building. Their parents, who worked as cleaners, had already left for their early morning shifts. Four months earlier, on Feb. 26, a 12-year-old girl lost her life in a blaze at a villa in Seo-gu, Incheon. The fire broke out around 10:43 a.m. while her father was at the hospital for dialysis treatment, and her mother had gone to work at a restaurant. Growing calls for legal protection Home is no longer a safe place for children left unattended. Out of the 108,759 child safety incidents reported between 2021 and 2023, nearly half (50,906) took place at home, according to the National Fire Agency, far outnumbering the 9,515 cases that occurred in schools, according to the National Fire Agency. But many children are left home alone after school, waiting for parents who are out working. According to a 2020 survey by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, 23.1 percent of elementary school students nationwide spent time alone at home after school. The survey was conducted among 5,050 parents. There is no existing legislation in South Korea that bans parents from leaving their children at home alone, but a recent string of fire accidents has reignited demands for such a law. "Korean society has long treated the reality of children being left home alone as unavoidable, often putting the burden of earning a living ahead of child safety. But recent tragedies force us to ask: Should making a living ever come before a child's life?" said Choi Seo-jeong, a 27-year-old graduate student in Seoul. In the United States, leaving a child alone is considered a form of child neglect and is legally prohibited. For instance, in Maryland, it is illegal to leave a child under the age of 8 unattended, while Illinois prohibits leaving children under 14 alone. If a child left alone is injured or killed in a fire or other accident, the parent may face criminal charges. Some local legal experts support the idea of similar legislation here, not to punish parents after accidents, but to prevent such tragedies from happening in the first place. 'The law should clearly define the age below which children cannot be left home alone, and that definition needs to consider differences in maturity and development,' Jeon Min-kyung, an attorney at the law firm Onyul, told The Korea Herald. She also stressed the importance of including exceptions in the law, especially for vulnerable families such as single mothers or households where grandparents are primary caregivera, saying "Without thoughtful exemptions, the law could end up hurting the very families it's meant to protect.' 'If a law mandating that children not be left alone is introduced with specific and reasonable conditions, it could help expand public support systems like nighttime or weekend child care services," she added.
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Korea Herald
North Korean crossed MDL into South Korea Thursday: JCS
A North Korean male, who identified himself as a civilian, crossed the Military Demarcation Line inside the Demilitarized Zone into South Korea, the South's military officials said Friday. The individual was taken into custody after crossing the midwestern part of the land border on Thursday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. It has yet to detect any unusual activities among the North Korean military. 'Our military identified the individual in question in the MDL area and proceeded with tracking and monitoring (of the individual),' the JCS said. 'We secured the individual through a normal procedure to guide the individual, and relevant authorities plan to investigate the detailed process (in crossing the border) to the South,' it added. A JCS official, declining to be named, told reporters that the individual, identified as male, was first detected through a military monitoring device on the South Korean side of the border around 3 a.m. Thursday. The operation to secure and guide the individual out of the DMZ spanned a total of 20 hours following the initial discovery of the North Korean individual, the official explained. He was later found by the military in a nearby stream, some 1 meter deep, before they took him into custody. The North Korean identified himself as a civilian to the South Korean troops and was unarmed. When the man asked the soldiers, "Who are you?" a sergeant replied, "We are the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. We will guide you safely." The presidential office said they received reports from the military and that the related agencies have launched a probe into the matter, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a Friday morning briefing. The last time that a North Korean crossed the MDL to defect to the South was Aug. 20. The North Korean, identified as a soldier, crossed the border when the inter-Korean tension was high, with the South conducting full-scale, anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts near the border. The broadcasts, now suspended, were carried out in response to the North's repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons. The DMZ, a 4-kilometer-wide buffer zone, currently separates the two Koreas. The two Koreas are still technically at war.
