a higher-ranking employee against their employee or subordinate by taking advantage of their power at workplace, and the victims of sexual harassment suffer serious mental and financial damages as they usually need to take psychiatric treatment for the emotional consequences that are caused by sexual harassment or are forced to leave their job. The sexual harassment cases accepted by the NHRCK even include one case in which the perpetrator made some sexually humiliating expressions against women through the commonlyused messenger application installed within his computer at workplace. For this case, the NHRCK determined that sexual harassment had been perpetrated, making overall considerations about where, when and to whom the expressions were communicated and the act’s negative impact on the working environment (the victim’s resignation in this case). 22. According to the NHRCK’s ‘Survey on Current Situations of Secondary Damage of Sexual Harassment and the Ways to Enhance Remedies’ of 2015, 40.2% (181 persons) of the entire respondents (450 workers) replied that they ‘would not raise any objection’ if they suffered sexual harassment, and the reasons chosen for this response were ‘for fear of bad rumours’ (94 respondents or 51%) and ‘for fear of victimization in employment’ (65 respondents or 36%), which means that the respondents were largely worried that they might suffer secondary damages for having complained about sexual harassment. In response, on 12 May 2016, the NHRCK recommended the Minister of Employment and Labor that the prohibition of victimization of the employees who suffered sexual harassment at workplace should be specified in the relevant legislation; the formulation of the regulations to prevent and remedy workplace sexual harassment should be made mandatory for the businesses with a certain number of employees or more; and specialized education for the officials responsible for dealing with sexual harassment complaints should be strengthened and detailed work manuals for sexual harassment grievance handling should be produced and disseminated. 23. In the meantime, a growing number of digital sex crimes, including sexual harassment or violence through Social Network Services (SNSs) and other online channels, have been reported throughout the world in recent years, and the ROK is not an exception. Since it is difficult for the victim of an online sex crime to confirm that such crime has been committed against him/herself and online sex crimes are, in most cases, done in secrecy, it is not easy to impose criminal penalties on those crimes under the existing legislation. For this reason, it is necessary to take actions to improve this situation. Furthermore, many cases of sexual harassment by students at school have been also reported. 24. The NHRCK, finding that the female quota of 12% for annual new entrants of the Korean National Police University is an excessive restriction, recommended the Commissioner of the Korean National Police Agency to increase the female quota (in September 2014). However, the Korean National Police Agency still limits the proportion of female entrants for the University in 2017 to 12%. According to the Police Statistical Yearbook 2014, about 82% of female police officers were concentrated in lower-ranking positions such as Officers, Senior Officers or Sergeants. 25. Since the murder of a woman which happened near the Gangnam subway station in Seoul in May 2016, hate issues, including hate speeches against women, have gained a growing attention as a serious social problem. In response, the NHRCK carried out the ‘Survey on Current Situations of Hate Speech and the Ways to Improve the Situations’ in 2016, while the National Assembly made legislative efforts to address the hate speech issue, including the actions to introduce the Anti-Discrimination Act which, however, has yet to be adopted. At present, the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities, Remedy Against Infringement of Their Rights is the only law in force in Korea that regulates hate speech (Article 32 Prevention of harassment). 7 / 25