Acts and Protection, etc. of Victims, it is not easy for prostituted women to be
recognized as victims under the current investigation procedure since they have
to prove themselves to be victims in order to be exempted when they were
arrested during the crackdown activities by the police. In addition, it is suspicious
whether the criminal punishment exemption provisions are truly effective as the
Government has failed to provide statistical data on exemption cases where the
arrested are recognized as victims. Therefore, measures to improve the
effectiveness of criminal punishment exemption provisions for female victims of
sexual traffic need to be developed.
47. The fact-finding results of youth prostitution in the 「2016 Fact-finding Survey on
Prostitution」 published by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in May
2017 revealed that the seven out of ten teenagers (74.8%) who experienced the
so-called “conditional dating” met the potential sex buyers through ‘chatting
applications’ (37.4%), ‘random chatting applications’ (23.4%), or online chatting
sites (14%). Only 15.7% of the total 108 websites that promote prostitution
requested for the age authentication to prove that the users were not minors. As
for the mobile applications, 278 applications that facilitate prostitution out of
total 317 (87.7%) were accessible without identity or device authentication, and
the highest number of applications (210 apps, 66.2%) had the age limit of 17
years.
* “Chatting applications” offer 1:1 conversation services and video conversation services.
“Random chatting applications” offer conversation or messaging services with unspecified individuals.
Source: Press Release from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (May 1st, 2017)
48. In the 「2016 Fact-finding Survey on Prostitution」, 107 adolescents under 19
years of age who experienced prostitution and ran away from home (61.8%)
responded that they had experienced the “conditional dating” out of total 173
respondents. Among these, 70.7% of adolescents first went to the “conditional
dating” after they had ran away from home, and 51.4% of them experienced it
while still enrolled in schools. The most common reason for the “conditional
dating” was to find a place to go and sleep (29%), and the “condition” was
money (87.9%) in most cases. The adolescents who went on the “conditional
dating” experienced both physical and psychological damage (65.4%), which