South Korea’s government and National Assembly…have failed to grapple with deep forms of gender inequity that fuel and normalize digital sex crimes. Heather Barr, interim co-director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, stated that “The root cause of digital sex crimes in South Korea is widely accepted harmful views about and conduct toward women and girls.” Koreans protesting against the spread of intimate photos and footage taken by hidden cameras. The problems survivors face in the justice system are exacerbated by a lack of women police, prosecutors, and judges.Īccording to the report, the seemingly never-ending digital sex crimes in Korea stems from gender inequality. Fifty-two percent received only a suspended sentence. Judges often impose low sentences – in 2020, 79 percent of those convicted of capturing intimate images without consent received a suspended sentence, a fine, or a combination of the two. In 2019, prosecutors dropped 43.5 percent of sexual digital crimes cases, compared with 27.7 percent of homicide cases and 19 percent of robbery cases. When cases move ahead, survivors struggle to obtain information about their cases and to have their voices heard by the court. Police often refuse to accept their complaints and behave in abusive ways, minimizing harm, blaming them, treating images insensitively, and engaging in inappropriate interrogation. Much of the public attention to digital sex crimes was initially driven by use of tiny cameras (“spy-cams”) to covertly record footage in places like toilets, changing rooms, and hotels, with those placing the cameras sometimes earning money by selling the footage.īased on 38 interviews with survivors of digital sex crimes and experts, as well as an online survey of survivors, the report then shares, “The women and girls targeted face major barriers to justice.” By 2017 the number of these cases had increased elevenfold, from 585 cases to 6,615, and constituted 20 percent of sex crime prosecutions. In 2008, fewer than 4 percent of sex crime prosecutions in South Korea involved illegal filming. Spy-cams being shown on “Little Big Masters.” | SBS The report pointed out that as the number of spy-cam and related digital sex crimes exploded elevenfold between 2008 to 2017, the government and legal authorities have remained all too lenient on handling such cases.
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