Need systematic crackdown on child pornography

Posted on : 2012-09-04 15:00 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
South Korea is world’s sixth largest distributor of child porn, accounting for 2.16%

By Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporter
Despite Korea being named the world’s sixth largest distributor of child pornography, government measures to deal with this problem are insufficient and new measures are urgently needed, critics say.
According to the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation, Korea was the world’s sixth largest distributor of child pornography in 2006. The United States was the largest at 51.1%, followed by Russia at 14.9%, Japan at 11.7%, Spain at 8.8%, Thailand at 3.6% and Korea at 2.16%.
It isn’t known where Korea stands now, as since 2007 the Internet Watch Foundation has released only continental statistics rather than national statistics, but its reports occasionally name Korea as a major distributor of child pornography.
The Internet Watch Foundation also presented statistics divided into commercial child porn and non-commercial child porn. No separate figure for commercial child porn was given for Korea, but Korea did account for 2.6% of the world’s non-commercial child porn. According to this, it would seem most of Korea’s child porn is produced non-commercially.
A police spokesperson said, “Korea is known as the world’s sixth largest producer of child porn, but it’s different from other countries. Elsewhere, it’s becoming a social problem because there are many cases in which child porn is produced using kidnapped children, but in Korea, it’s understood that most child porn is made and distributed by minors for fun.”
He also said, “It also appears the Internet Watch Foundation’s statistics show that foreign child porn is distributed in Korea rather than Korea producing a lot of its own child porn.”
In a report announced on August 31 on the danger of online child porn and measures to combat it, the National Assembly Research Service analyzed that Korean dealers distributing child porn were selling their content overseas rather than locally.
This suggests that commercial distribution in Korea is not developed.
Jo Hui-jeong, a political science scholar at the National Assembly Research Service who conducted the research, said, “Because child porn is itself the sexual exploitation of children and can become a cause of sexual crimes against children, it needs to be separately managed and cracked down upon in a systematic way, not managed along with adult porn.”
 
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