In South Korea, a troubling trend of infant mortality, dubbed “ghost baby” cases, has gripped the nation. Recent arrests highlight an unsettling issue that has prompted a nationwide investigation and sparked calls for stricter legislative measures.

In early July, law enforcement detained a woman in her 40s who allegedly buried her infant daughter alive in 2016. The child was scarcely a week old at the time. The mother stated the pregnancy had been unwanted.

A separate incidentin June led to the arrest of another woman accused of strangling her newborn children — a girl and a boy born in