Gov't to seek rigorous accountability for underage sex crime victims
By Lee Kyung-min
Victims of sex crimes who are under the age of 19 will be able to better seek compensation against perpetrators, following the government's move to revise the civil law to extend the statute of limitation governing such offences. The Ministry of Justice said it will revise the law to allow victims to file a civil suit against the perpetrator within three years after they turn 19. If the victim cannot immediately identify the perpetrator, the period will be extended to 10 years.
The current law states that the limitation expires if victims _ or their parents or legal guardians _ fail to seek redress measures within three years after they become aware that the incident occurred and know the identity of the perpetrator. The limitation also expires ten years after the date the incident occurred. Under such laws, the ministry said, no legal redress measure is available to victims seeking compensation for sexual harassment or assault that occurred when they were underage, if their parents failed to seek any legal measures despite knowledge of the offence for three years.
The measure, the ministry added, is expected to better protect the victims' rights amid the government's continued efforts to eradicate sex crimes. The ministry will collect public opinion by July with expected submission to the National Assembly scheduled for August at the earliest.
The move follows mounting calls amid the increasing number of crimes against the vulnerable over the past few years. According to data from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, as of last year, 8,340 sex crime victims were under 19, indicating an average of 22 children were subject to the offence per day. Of them, 1,083 were under 13, with the recidivism rate against the age group on a steady increase from 5.9 percent in 2011 and 10.2 percent in 2015. Data from the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency showed 4,427 cases of sex crimes were reported between 2015 and last March including 236 rapes. A third of the total victims were under 19. According to 2017 data from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, the rate of sex crimes per 100,000 people in nearly doubled from 29.1 in 2007 to 60.3 in 2015. However, over 91 percent of the suspected rapists were indicted without physical detention and nearly half, had their charges dropped.
The government is also seeking a law revision to punish those who commit sex crimes against children under 13 regardless of the statute of limitation. The move follows a growing apprehension against the scheduled release in 2020 of Cho Doo-soon, who was convicted of raping an eight-year-old school girl, which left her with permanent damage to multiple organs. Despite the severity of the crime, he was only sentenced to a 12-year prison term in 2008, after a judge recognized his claim that he was intoxicated at the time of the incident and therefore unable to make rational decisions.