By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Twenty-nine out of every 1,000 women were sexually assaulted last year, the Ministry of Gender Equality said Friday. The figure is more than 100 times bigger than previous official reports because in the past 99.7 percent of victims had declined to report incidents to the police, it said.

The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and Korean Institute of Criminology reported its survey of 7,887 females and 5,721 males found 42 females had suffered from rape or attempted rape.

Once groping, genital exposure (flashing), explicit phone calls and stalking are added, the number of women suffering from sexual assault rose to 770 who reported 2,175 cases. Most suffered from explicit phone calls (220) or flashing (132) while 67 said they had been raped by their spouses.

Most of the offenders were acquaintances of the victim ― mostly former spouses, lovers, co-workers or neighbors. However, the victims did not report these attacks to police because they didn't think it was important (68.1 percent) or they believed they could handle the situation by themselves (12.2 percent).

However, 4.2 percent said police would be of little help while 58.4 percent of those who did report attacks to the police said the subsequent investigation was not satisfactory.

The report predicts there are 110.7 times more actual victims of sexual offences than police or other government agencies believe. We also found 28.1 percent of female respondents felt insecure in their daily lives because of possible sexual assault. We must pay more attention to these women,'' Yun Gang-mo, ministry official said.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr