By Kim Bo-eun
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office requested the court Tuesday to allow chemical castration to be performed on a 30-year-old sex offender.
The move came after the prosecution indicted the suspect for allegedly raping several teenage girls since November.
It is the first time since chemical castration, which is hormonal treatment to reduce the sex drive, was enforced in July last year that the prosecution has asked the court to order the measure.
The only person currently undergoing chemical castration in the nation is a 45-year-old sex pedophile, surnamed Park, which a committee under the Ministry of Justice last May decided should receive the treatment.
Under the current law there are two main processes through which it is decided when chemical castration should be administered; through the committee under the Ministry of Justice or by having the prosecution request the court for an order.
The committee is able to order up to three years of treatment and the court 15 years.
According to investigators, the man, surnamed Pyo, paid five teenage girls aged between 14 and 16 that he met through a smart phone messenger service to have sex with him and recorded the incidents. Pyo then threatened the girls with releasing the videos and raped them six times.
The investigators quoted Pyo as saying that he wasn’t able to control his sex drive.
However, questions regarding the practicalities of the method are being raised because the costs for the injections are high and have to be given regularly.
According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, it costs 3.5 million won per year for one person to receive chemical castration.
“Although the measure was implemented with the objective of trying every possible measure, there are issues of effectiveness and costs as well as side-effects when the treatment is stopped,” said Minister Kim Kum-lae in an interview with The Korea Times. “We will be able to determine whether the measure is appropriate when more cases accumulate.”