Rural residents face higher risk of sex crimes than city dwellers

By Yi Whan-woo

Seven of 10 crimes in rural areas are related to sexual violence, data showed Friday.

Of the 1,471 crimes reported last year at farming and fishing villages across the country, 70.7 percent were rapes and other sexual assaults against women and children.

The figures that police submitted to Rep. Ha Tae-kyung of the ruling Saenuri Party showed the number of crimes in 2011 in those regions increased by 40 percent from 1,046 in 2009.

The rate was higher than in the six major cities of Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Daejeon, Incheon and Ulsan. The number of crimes in those cities saw a 19 percent increase in the same period, up from 1,009 in 2009 to 1,202 in 2011.

“We can clearly see residents living in the countryside are seriously exposed to dangers in their everyday lives,” Ha said. “And one of the main reasons is because of the government’s lack of support in terms of public safety and childcare.”

Concerns on public safety in rural areas have risen with a series of crimes against women and children in those regions recently.

In July, a 10-year-old girl was strangled to death in Tongyoung, South Gyeongsang Province, by a male neighbor in his 40s.

The girl, surnamed Han, was raised by a single father who went out to work on a farm early in the morning and returned late at night.

Han asked for a ride from the 44-year-old suspect, surnamed Kim, on her way to school when the tragic incident occurred.

The man had been previously convicted of sex offenses but none of his neighbors, including Han and her father, knew Kim had a criminal record because the police did not inform them.

In the same month, a woman in her 40s was murdered by a man on a trekking trail on Jeju Island. The 44-year-old man, surnamed Kang, killed the woman, a tourist from Seoul, after he failed to rape her.

The site where the murder occurred was remote and did not have any surveillance cameras.

In August, an 8-year-old girl was raped by a male neighbor in Naju, South Jeolla Province, after being kidnapped from her house at night while sleeping.

“The cases in rural areas show that police need to put more efforts into maintaining public safety,” Ha said. “Such efforts should include an increase in the number of police officers and also disclosure of the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders.”