81 sex offenders found to have been working at child-related facilities last year

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By Jun Ji-hye

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family caught 81 sex offenders for having held jobs where they were in contact with children last year, despite court-ordered employment restrictions, the ministry said Thursday.

Under the country's existing law governing the protection of children, ex-convicts who received employment restriction orders after being found guilty of sex crimes are prohibited from working at children-related places for a maximum of 10 years.

The law also calls on employers of these workplaces to do a background check before hiring any employees. Violators face up to 5 million won ($3,800) in fines.

The ministry inspected relevant workplaces across the country from March to December last year, checking the criminal records of about 3.41 million people. Among them, 81 were found to have received employment restriction orders by courts for their sex crimes.

“Of the 81, 43 had already been dismissed,” a ministry official said.

The number of sex offenders caught increased by 14 from a year earlier.

By type of workplace, 24 ex-convicts were found to have worked at sports facilities or cram schools for children, while six were working at video game arcades or PC rooms. Four were working at schools.

Other facilities that employed ex-convicts included medical institutions, museums and nurseries.

Gender Equality and Family Minister Kim Hyun-sook speaks during a National Assembly meeting, Feb. 23. Yonhap

The names of these places and their addresses will be made public via a website operated by the ministry until May 31.

The ministry official noted that the existing law has failed to provide explicit penalties for ex-convicts violating the employment restrictions.

“Asking for their dismissal or closure of institutes are the only ways to punish them for now,” the official said.

To solve this problem, the ministry is working to revise the law in order to create more penalties.

The revision is also aimed at enhancing punishments for institutes that refuse to submit documents requested by the ministry to check employees for criminal records, as well as improving relevant education.

The pre-announcement of legislation will be made by the end of this month.

“We will promote the employment restriction system more actively and push to improve the law to increase the effectiveness of child protection policies,” Gender Equality Minister Kim Hyun-sook said.