SEOUL, Dec. 1 (UPI) — The family of a South Korean girl who threw herself from an apartment high-rise in Seoul four years ago was awarded $112,310 in compensation from the defendants.
Classmates reportedly bullied the girl, who was 14 on Nov. 18, 2011, when she plunged to her death, South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Sinmun reported Tuesday.
Before she died, the girl, identified by South Korean newspaper Maeil Business by the surname Kim, left a suicide note that listed the names of the students who tormented her in class.
“If I die, it will be the end for all of you…and these complicated problems would come to an end, too,” the note had read.
Kim’s family has blamed the school and the parents of the students listed on the note their daughter left behind.
According to Seoul Central District Court statements, the girl’s family had requested $345,570 in compensation from the school’s principal, Kim’s homeroom teacher and the parents of the five students named on Kim’s suicide note.
But Tuesday, Kim Yong-gwan, the presiding judge on the case, ordered the defendants to pay a fraction of the amount, or $112,310.
The court stated Kim’s death resulted from a series of bullying incidents that Kim could no longer bear.
Evidence presented before the court showed Kim’s classmates would for no reason hit her on the head and shoulders, pour water over her desk in her absence, or steal her mobile phone.
“Kim resorted to suicide when she could longer withstand the emotional pain that resulted from bullying, and from the bickering that occurred the same day she took her own life,” the court said.
But the statement also read, “It was Kim who chose to commit suicide, and the care of the child and her upbringing also rests with her parents.”
The city of Seoul, responsible for the administration of Kim’s public school, is to pay $17,300 in damages for Kim’s death.
Suicide is the leading cause of death among South Korean teenagers and young people, and suicide in general has been increasing since the early 1990s, reaching an all-time high in 1998 at the height of the Asian financial crisis.
