A Chilean taekwondo teacher was convicted of mistreating and humiliating three of his students

A taekwondo teacher was put on trial in Chile, after being accused of mistreating at least three of the underage students who attended the martial arts school he runs. If convicted, justice could prevent him from continuing to attend his classes.

The indictment against the sensey describes psychological abuse of three students in his class (two girls and one boy). The author of the humiliations was convicted of the crime of degrading treatment by the Guarantee Court of Chillán, a city located 419 kilometers south of the Chilean capital. According to close, supposedly inspired by a Netflix series in which a “sensey” is shown offending his students.

The martial arts teacher held his classes in a sports venue called ''Taekwondo Warriors Sepul'' between 2017 and 2018, when he tried to “weep, dumb and weak” an eight-year-old girl in front of other students.

After the complex stage exhibited, the subject ordered the rest of the students to train, telling them that “'taekwondo was a sport for the brave and that whoever was not prepared to endure, should retire, that this was the treatment of a high-performance athlete”.

As a result of the abuse, the minor suffered a drastic change in her personality and in fact, as stated in the complaint, she would have tried to take her own life, which is why she had to initiate psychological treatment that accompanies her to this day.

The second case took place during the same period, but now the victim was a 10-year-old boy, who was frequently annoyed by the teacher, mocking that he was fat, in addition to referring to him as' 'little girl' ', causing the minor to cry repeatedly.

While the third complaint against the martial art instructor was for psychological abuse of a girl under 14 years of age, who suffered a degradation due to her physical condition, and who was ordered by the instructor to ''shut his mouth'. Faced with this, the teacher stated that ''they were not in a ballet class''.

Prosecutor Florentino Bobadilla, an official of the Ñuble Regional Prosecutor's Office, stated that, as a result of these degrading treatment against dignity, the victims suffered high-intensity post-traumatic stress according to the reports of a psychologist from the Legal Medical Service of Chillán, and from sports frustration and low self-esteem, due to part of one of those affected.

The Public Ministry of the area, for its part, requested three sentences of 180 days of effective imprisonment, in addition, the accused was disqualified for three years and one day from exercising his trade as a martial arts teacher for minors under 18, and 60 days of assistance were also granted to a special rehabilitation program for abusers. Meanwhile, after the simplified trial, which began two weeks ago, the court set the hearing for the communication of judgment for April 21.

The crime of degrading abuse is relatively new to the Chilean justice system, since it was established in 2019 and therefore, there is very limited jurisprudence in this regard.

Prosecutor Bobadilla himself emphasized that this crime was created to address situations of vulnerability presented by children and adolescents, but that, in the same way, it is focused on older adults and people with disabilities.

''It is important that it be considered a crime, since these are treatments that violate the dignity of the human being and, in particular, it demystifies and denies the idea that, because it is a sport that requires a high level of discipline (taekwondo), the public prosecutor stated.

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