‘Soranet’, an Internet site that was the hub of pornographic materials in Korea.
The offenders are committing crimes abusing the personal information they
possess of their former girlfriends such as family or workplace information after
filming intimate videos, against the women’s will or after obtaining consent. It is
retaliation after the couples break up and the offenders disseminate the videos
to specific persons including the victims’ husbands, new boyfriends or family
members, or to unspecified individuals on the Internet. The number of
pornographic materials deleted by the Korea Communication Standards
Commission, after receiving complaints, increased more than five times from
1,404 cases in 2014 to 7,325 cases in 2016. The number of complaint cases
submitted to the Commission with respect to the delete requests of
pornographic materials containing individuals’ sexual acts was 3,397 cases in
2015, and 1,166 cases were submitted and dealt with in 2013 showing a sharply
rising curve.
42. While the victims could report the case and request the videos to be deleted by
the Commission, in reality, it takes a long time to be finished. As such, most
victims personally resort to the private service by “digital undertakers” to destroy
the videos online. It costs from 500,000 won to 3,000,000 won a month causing
economic damage to the victims with no end in sight. The official statistical
information on these services is not available while the number of the private
business is increasing with a rising demand of requests by the victims.
[10] Reinforcement of Human Rights Protection of Women and Children Victimized
by Sex Traffic (List of Issues 12)
43. Article 21 (1) of the Act on the Punishment of Acts of Arranging Sexual Traffic
enacted in 2004 stipulates that “a person involved in prostitution shall be subject
to imprisonment up to one year or monetary penalty up to three million one,
detention or fine,” punishing both the buyer and seller of sex. In December 2012,
the
Seoul
Northern
District
Court
requested
an
adjudication
on
the
constitutionality of Article 21 (1) of the Act on the Punishment of Acts of
Arranging Sexual Traffic citing that the provision goes beyond the limit of basic