A high-profile sexual abuse case at a South Korean disabled care home has sent shockwaves across the country, resulting in a 15-year prison sentence for the facility’s former director and triggering urgent nationwide reviews of residential care services for people with disabilities. The convicted individual, identified only by his surname Kim, was found guilty of sexually assaulting three residents of the Saekdongwon care facility, located in Incheon City, approximately 30 kilometers west of the national capital Seoul. The investigation into Kim’s actions was only launched after one of his victims, a woman living with a severe intellectual disability, stepped forward to report the abuse in February of last year. In the wake of Kim’s conviction, a deeper investigation commissioned by local Ganghwa County authorities uncovered disturbing new findings: as many as 20 current and former female residents of the facility may have been targeted for sexual abuse over the course of Kim’s tenure. The revelation has sparked intense public outrage and widespread questioning across South Korea, particularly given the country strengthened legal protections for people with disabilities against sexual violence back in 2011. Many members of the public and advocacy groups have raised critical questions about systemic failures that allowed Kim’s harmful actions to remain hidden from authorities for years. In response to the scandal, local regulators have taken swift administrative action: Ganghwa County has ordered Saekdongwon to permanently cease operations, while Incheon City officials have revoked the operating license of the non-profit foundation that ran the facility. To protect the well-being of the facility’s current residents, the closure has been delayed until all residents can be safely relocated to appropriate alternative care arrangements and supported transition to independent living, where applicable. The affected foundation has pushed back against the regulatory action, however, filing an administrative lawsuit to challenge the revocation of its operating license. Following the outbreak of the scandal, the South Korean national government launched an urgent inspection of all 1,507 residential disabled care facilities operating across the country. Preliminary results from that sweeping review uncovered 33 separate suspected cases of abuse across the nation’s care system, pointing to broader systemic issues that require policy intervention. South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok has called the abuse at Saekdongwon an unprecedented moral failure, describing the incident as “a grave matter that calls into question the very reason for the state’s existence”, underscoring the severity with which national authorities view the scandal.