Commemorating Anti-prostitution Week, the Women’s Human Rights Institute of Korea held an anti-prostitution policy conference on “Finding alternatives to stop online based sexual exploitation” on September 25th.
Keynote speaker Kyonggi University’s department of forensic psychology professor Suejung Lee and research team analyzed dialogues between those who attempted sexual exploitation by approaching children and youth via access to online chat platforms. Within online chat applications, children and youth were lured sexually regardless of age; and sex buying or obscene chats continued even after acknowledging that the conversational counterpart was a juvenile.
Sexual exploitation of children and youth is rampant but applications with protection measures were hard to find. Only 51 applications (25.1%) showed warning signs against prostitution; only 31 applications (15.2%) had banners with the Youth Cyber Counseling Center’s hotline information; and only 4 applications required an adult verification procedure to log in. The research team analyzed domestic and international laws and systems, and proposed a revision of the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth against Sex Offenses (hereinafter Children and Youth Act); to raise the minimum age for negligent rape of minors; strengthen punishment and preemptive crackdown on sex buyers; and raise monetary incentive and further activate the system.
In the discussions that followed: ▲ Tacteen’s president Lee Hyunsook reviewed UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child and discussed measures to improve policies on domestic online sexual exploitation of teenagers. ▲ Human Rights for the Disabled Legal Center representative and lawyer Kim Yewon emphasized the need to raise the minimum age for negligent rape of minors, remove the concept of “targeted youth” in the Children and Youth Act, and newly establish punishment for the preliminary conspiring of sexual exploitation of children and youth. ▲ The Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media’s secretary general Kim Eon-kyeong pointed out media report’s manner of framing youth sexual exploitation as an issue of social deviation of juvenile delinquents, and current affairs programs and TV dramas promoting bias toward prostitution. After reporting on the results of monitoring media reports on youth prostitution, she emphasized media’s role in using the term “sexual exploitation of youth“ in news reports. Lastly, ▲ the Korea Communications Standards Commission‘s Youth Protection Leaders Team (hereinafter KCSC)’s Kim Jun-gyo shared results of KCSC’s activities such as monitoring illegal use of children and youth in the production of pornography and reviewing variant forms of online ads and banners soliciting prostitution. Moreover, he said he would continue in the efforts of continuous monitoring, provide information to investigation authorities and collaborate with other affiliated organizations, and operate a voluntary deliberation system with online businesses such as portals businesses.
Sources
WHRIK News, Women’s Human Rights Institute of Korea (Oct 1, 2019)
Shin, Hye-jung. “Do you want to play?”: chat apps disguising as elementary school students and 31% were sexually lured. Hankuk Ilbo (Sept 26, 2019)
* Translated by Yonjoo Hong
** The article which is written in Korean is attached in this post as a PDF file.
