Photo Credit: Office of the President
South Korean government promises proactive response to digital sex
crimes
which are fatal to prostituted women
At a meeting with his chief secretaries and aides
on May 14, President Moon Jae-in stated that unconsented distribution of
private images and dating violence are two serious crimes that can destroy the
lives of their women victims. President Moon urged investigative agencies to raise
their awareness and take these crimes more seriously.
Digital sexual abuse in South Korea is not a
recent phenomenon and has become a rapidly growing industry. In October 2017,
operators and members of an illicit pornography site were arrested for secretly
filming and distributing private images of a number of women. One of the
operators was engaged in domestic and overseas prostitution for six years starting
in 2011 as he secretly filmed prostituted women and shared the images on the
website in an effort to attract more visitors to the site. As of 2017, the
website had about 250,000 members. It was eventually ordered to close. At the
time of the closure, the number of women victimized was estimated to be around
600,000.
As seen in this case, prostitution and digital
sex crimes are closely related. The digital environment is exploited to produce
and distribute illegal advertisements on prostitution using private images of
women taken without their consent to attract visitors of websites such as
Tumblr to the prostitution market. The gravity of the connection between
prostitution and digital sex crimes is also clear through the fact that 99% of
some 22,000 Tumblr cases that were subjected to correction orders from the
Korea Communications Standards Commission were related to prostitution and pornography
information.
Sources:
1. The Kyunghyang Shinmun, “Unconsented distribution of private images and dating violence should
be addressed as serious crimes” says President Moon, May 15, 2018.
2.The Yonhap News Agency, An indecent site found to have a porn novel contest and secret videos
of prostituted women, October 30, 2017.
3. Channel A, The government declares war against the unconsented filming of private
images and decides to investigate 50,000 public restrooms, June 15, 2018.
4. MBC News, Tumblr, a hotbed for private images and pornographic materials, May
31, 2018.
5. YTN, The
Blue House to introduce a registration of the personal information of purchasers
of hidden cameras, June 15, 2018.
Note: The article which is written in Korea is attached as a separate file in this posting (see attached)
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