The government on Thursday announced a set of measures to toughen the punishments for sex crimes against women and children and to strengthen preventive measures to root out such offenses.
The latest move came in the wake of the recent murders of a young girl and a woman tourist. The girl was sexually assaulted and police suspect the woman may have been also.
A 45-year-old man under police detention has confessed to kidnapping, sexually molesting and killing the 10-year-old girl, whose body was found on Sunday one week after she went missing on her way to school in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province.
In Jeju, a 46-year-old local man was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of killing a 40-year-old female tourist and dismembering her body.
Police are continuing their investigation of the two on suspicion of rape, acts they have both denied.
Under the new measures, the government plans to revise the law to make public the full address of sex offenders, both on the Internet and via smartphohes.
Databases with details about sex offenders, which have been managed separately by the ministries concerned, will also be merged to improve public access to the information and close possible loopholes, according to the government.
A separate task force will be set up to discuss whether to retroactively make sex criminals disclose their personal information and wear electronic anklets that transmit the offenders' locations.
The punishments of wearing anklets and publicly disclosing personal information were introduced in 2008 and 2010, respectively, so are currently only applied to those found guilty of sex crimes since.
The government has also decided to push to extend the maximum jail term for those who produce or transact in child pornography from five years to 10.
As part of efforts to prevent such tragedies from occurring at all, the government also plans to establish more community-based centers for children who have nobody else at home after school, taking the number from 3,985 centers in 2011 to 4,673 in 2015.
It is also considering abolishing a 15-year maximum period of medical treatment for sex criminals in custody, while increasing treatments and consultation services for both criminals and their victims.
"I would like to express condolences to the innocent victims and their bereaved families," Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik said while presiding over the inter-ministry meeting.
"No efforts will be spared to eradicate social ills and create a zero-tolerance atmosphere in society," he added. (Yonhap)