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Today (7th), in order to look at ways to protect our children from violence and crime, let's look at whether criminals of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents are being properly punished.
In the wake of the nth room case, the standards have been changed to allow for a heavier punishment from last year, but we analyzed the judgment of the first trial of the national courts to see what the reality is.
Reporters Shin Jeong-eun and Park Se-won reported exclusively.
<Reporter Shin Jeong-eun>
She introduced herself as a 14-year-old female student in an open chat room on Kakao Talk, and she wanted to meet a man in his 30s.
She repeatedly requested body photos in an anonymous message.
[A man in his 30s, Mr. A: (You kept asking for pictures of your breasts and didn't know that it was illegal?) Yes, I didn't know.
(You didn't know?) Yes.]
A crime of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents produced through these illegal acts.
Sentencing standards have been significantly strengthened since January of last year, with a maximum sentence of 29 years and 3 months in prison if it is systematically produced and distributed in the wake of the nth room incident.
[Ahn Kyung-ok / Co-CEO of the National Sexual Violence Counseling Center: Someone becomes a file name, a part number…
.
As criminals begin to receive their punishment, the recovery of victims' daily harm can also begin.]
SBS analyzed the verdict to see if punishments were being tightened.
Last year's first trial judgment was searched with keywords 'obscene material' and sexual exploitation material, and 734 defendants were selected.
When the 'Nth Room Case' became a controversy, there was also a defendant who deliberately searched for related search terms and downloaded sexual exploitation material.
A man who forced 11-, 12-, and 13-year-old boys to take pictures of their bodies, then made sexual exploits and even forcibly molested them.
It was a crime committed while on probation for a past sexual offense.
According to the strengthened sentencing standards, the basic sentence for producing sexual exploitation is 5 to 9 years in prison, 7 years or more if there are multiple victims, and 10 years and 6 months or more if habitual.
A man who posted sexual exploitation 18 times in a Telegram chat room also had a history of buying sex from youth, but was sentenced to '1 year and 6 months in prison, 3 years of probation'.
In addition to storing, producing, and distributing sexual exploitation, there were 101 cases of additional sexual offenses.
An average of 21 months in prison was given, except for 147 people (26.7%) who actually received sentences, all received probation.
The penalty is 14.4%, with an average of 5.72 million won.
And there was no difference compared to the previous year before the sentencing standards were tightened.
In terms of sentencing alone, the rate of imprisonment sentences was higher in last year (83.5%) than in the previous year (77%), but the number of sentences sentenced to imprisonment rather than probation decreased.
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<Reporter Park Se-won>
[Seo Hye-jin / Human Rights Director, Korean Women's Lawyers Association: Still less than the victims' feelings or the degree of damage...
If punishment is now lightly punished with fines and probation, there is a risk of another victim...
.]
Sexual exploitation crimes are done through digital devices, and there is a high risk of re-offending.
Restrictions on employment in educational facilities for children and youth are also necessary. What about related measures?
Among the sentences in the first trial, less than half were each sentenced to confiscation of digital devices or restrictions on employment.
Even though 4,785 cases of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents were directly bought, copied, and stored, no measures were taken to confiscate cell phones and external hard drives used in crimes.
There was also a ruling that there was no special circumstance to restrict employment, although it was said that possession of child sexual exploitation could lead to sexual crimes targeting children.
Why did the court make a ruling that did not even meet the stricter sentencing standards?
The fact that 12% of all defendants had no history of sexual offenses was reflected in the sentencing favorably, and 90% of the sentences cited the fact that they acknowledged the crime and reflected on it as a reason for commutation.
3,000 cases were downloaded with one click, there was a judgment that the number of sentences was reduced because the victim's face was not shown in the video, he suffered a fracture in a car accident, is a college student, is a freshman in society, there are various reasons for commuting the sentence I did.
(Video coverage: Hyung Yoon, Video editing: Won Hee Won, CG: Park Cheon-woong, Jo Su-in, Uhm So-min, Jang Seong-beom)