Ⅷ. Special Protection Measures (Articles 22, 30, 32~36, 37 (b)~(d) and 38~40) 1. Sexual exploitation Child sexual abuse 1) Current situation 89. The Government has increased protection of the victims of child sexual abuse in the course of criminal procedures, but the problem of secondary damage remains unresolved. The reason is not because no program exists to prevent such secondary damage, but because the program does not work properly in reality or is not effective enough. In effect, the practice of having the victims of sexual abuse make repeated statements is prevalent and the investigators cannot be trained to have sufficient expertise, despite the presence of the dedicated investigator system. In the process of interrogation, a child victim is supposed to be accompanied by a person he/she trusts, but in some cases, he/she was accompanied mistakenly by the person who was in favor of the offender. The courts of law in Korea have little space for a child to wait in before taking the witness stand in court. 90. In many cases, the families of the victims of child sexual abuse suffer as much as the children themselves but, under the current law, family members, relatives and other people who are in a close relationship with the child victims have no right to claim medical support. Counselling services or therapeutic programs are not offered to the siblings or school peers of the child victims (although the cases of sexual abuse at school have a serious adverse impact on school peers). 91. Schools usually conduct a one-off program on prevention of sexual abuse, by giving a lecture in the auditorium or broadcasting a lecture to the whole students or giving out printed materials. Once a case of sexual abuse occurs, schools often victimize the teachers who reported the case by treating them unfavorably in their personnel credits, or try to cover up or reduce the incident. 92. The Government has provided the ex-convicts of child sexual abuse with an educational program to prevent recurrence of child sexual abuse, but the program is neither streamlined nor financially sound. The Government has not made a systematic evaluation on the current status and the effect of the ongoing anti-recurrence measures. 93. Recognizing the need to address this situation, NHRCK recommended in 2010 that each of the relevant government ministries and agencies should improve their policies on supporting the victims of child sexual abuse and protecting their human rights. - 24 -