By Lee Chang-sup
Last week, a seven-year-old girl and a 20-something woman in her third trimester of pregnancy were sexually assaulted. They became among the 24,000 victims of sexual abuses that take place each year in Korea.
According to the National Police Agency, sex offenses in Korea have risen by 40 percent yearly since 2007. Consequently, Korea has the highest number of sex offenders per 100,000 children, surpassing the United States, the UK, Germany, and Japan.
The sharp increase in sex crimes in recent years may be attributed to a number of factors, including the degradation of society’s morality, the widening economic polarization and the spreading corruption.
The legal leniency toward sex offenders may also be a contributor to this disturbing trend. For instance, courts have set six out of 10 sexual assaulters free last year, for reasons including first-time offense, repentance, and out-of-court settlements. The so-called “drunken immunity,” or the leniency toward intoxicated offenders, has also often been used as a reason for not putting such criminals behind bars.
Majority (six out of 10) of adults in Korea want long jail terms against child molesters. However, Korea’s punishment for such offenders seems very lenient relative to those of other countries. These criminals often serve jail terms of less than five years. Meanwhile, sex offenders in several U.S. states, including Florida, face harsher punishment such as death sentences. In Switzerland, rapists are sentenced to life-long segregation. Conservatives call for the revival of the capital punishment, which President Kim Dae-jung suspended in 1998.
The unchecked dissemination of pornography may be another reason for the significant increase in sex crimes. Rapists, for instance, frequently use computers to procure pornography. These offenders are poor, unmarried day workers who have victimized women and children in their neighborhoods. However, they seldom showed signs of their criminal inclinations before committing the crimes they did. These criminals seem docile, taciturn, kind and harmless, when, in fact, they are loners, social outcasts, or psychopaths. Many of them have tried to kill their victims to destroy evidence of their wrongdoings.
The number of teenage sex offenders is also increasing. For instance, police in Gwangju recently detained an 18-year-old student for raping a 15-year-old middle school girl. Similarly, authorities in Cheonan arrested a 16-year-old high school student for raping elementary and middle-school girls last week. The number of other sex offenders such as pedophiles is also increasing.
Although parents and teachers are doing their part, they do not have sufficient and appropriate resources to combat this problem among young people. For instance, teenagers these days can easily access pornography from their smartphones. Furthermore, few schools have sex education programs.
Coincidently or not, sex offenses have risen dramatically after Roh Moo-hyun’s administration abolished red-light districts in 2006. Rather than reducing the number of prostitutes in Korea, the move has driven prostitutes underground, with many going overseas to do business. Korea is reportedly the only OECD country that exports prostitutes. Meanwhile, other prostitutes turned to advertising their services online. An online prostitution website reportedly earned $2 million yearly. Still, other sex brokers or pimps attract customers by providing “loyalty” discounts, or by working with hotels in posh districts.
Although Roh had a justifiable rationale for abolishing red-light districts, which is to protect the rights of women, the move did not eliminate prostitution, but rather made it more lucrative. This move has put the government in a policy dilemma and in a no-win situation. The government currently cannot reestablish red-light districts. Furthermore, other policy options would not be effective. The government cannot hide the sun with its palm now.
President Lee Myung-bak has declared war against sex crimes, especially those against children. In a radio address Monday, he promised to increase the budget for cracking down on what he called “beasts with human faces.” Among the steps he proposed is the wider use of electronic anklets and chemical castration. However, these proposed solutions have caveats — for instance, sex offenders can easily remove electronic anklets, while human rights activists deem the chemical option inhumane.
President Lee also promised to publicize information of sex offenders, including their names, pictures, addresses, incarceration dates, and nature of crimes. He proposed implementing a ban on pornographic sites and other online sex sites, which seems appropriate given that Korea has the sixth largest number of sex sites in the world.
President Lee said that the police alone cannot reduce the trend in sex crimes, and that teachers, parents, and other citizens should join in the crusade. Parents urge judges and prosecutors to strengthen penalties against sex offenders. Meanwhile, vulnerable citizens can also avail themselves of self-protection gadgets.
Korea also plans to institute a behavior modification program to reduce recidivism in sex offenders, which is currently at about 45 percent. Policemen are now also empowered to question suspicious persons on the street, a controversial measure that may trigger human rights issues.
The Korean government cannot boast that the country is among the few with no red-light districts, as the abolition of such districts did not eliminate prostitution but rather made it more lucrative. A Korea Gallup survey showed that 56 percent of males and 41 percent of females attributed the recent surge of sex crimes to the demolition of the red-light districts.
Although people talk about the need for red-light districts in order to reduce sex crimes, they are reluctant to raise their voices in public. Without radical steps, sex offenses in Korea will likely continue to rise in the future.
Lee Chang-sup is the executive managing director of the Korea Times. Contact him at editorial@koreatimes.co.kr.