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Digital sex offender Cho Ju-bin is taken to the Jongno Police Station in Seoul on Mar. 25. (photo pool)

“Amid a climate of intimidation, circulation, and misogyny, anyone can become a file name, a product number, a video that continues to circulate around the world. The victims need to be able to regain their voice and live safely as dignified citizens once the criminals begin to pay for their misdeeds.”

The Nov. 26 sentencing of Cho Ju-bin, the 25-year-old operator of the “Doctor’s Room” on the chat app Telegram, in his first trial prompted women’s rights group to stress that the “resolution of the Telegram sexual exploitation issue has now begun” and call for stern punishment of other offenders and protections for victims.

Shortly after Cho’s sentencing that day, a press conference was held in front of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul’s Seocho District by the Joint Countermeasures Committee for the Telegram Sexual Exploitation Case, a group with participants including the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center.

“Eradicating sexual exploitation, revising laws and institutions so that offenders pay for their crimes, and establishing the sort of social perceptions that allow the victims to recover are not things that can be resolved in the short term,” it stressed, adding that the “end of Telegram sexual exploitation is only just beginning.”

To enable victims to return to daily life, the investigation and trial processes should take place in a way that protects and respects them, the group insisted. The current Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes and other laws include provisions to prevent secondary damage from occurring during the trial process, including nondisclosure of victim statements and the removal of defendants from the courtroom. But their actual application is left as a matter for the court’s discretion. In many cases, the protection measures for victims vary according to a particular judge’s decree of “gender sensitivity.” Cho Eun-ho, an attorney with the legal team representing victims in the Telegram case, said that victims can “escape their past sense of helplessness at the time of victimization through the experience of being part of the perpetrator’s punishment.”

“Investigation organizations and courts need to respect the victim’s wishes while using all available means to guarantee the victim’s position and rights in the legal process,” she stressed.

The Joint Countermeasures Committee also called for stronger sentencing standards and more progressive decisions by courts on cases involving digital sex crimes, noting that “punishments are still weak, with cases of distribution and possession resulting in simple fines.” Kwon Hyo-eun, a member of the group National Solidarity against Sexual Exploitation of Women, remarked, “Once a video enters circulation, it is out of the perpetrator’s hands and ends up causing secondary and tertiary damage, yet courts do not recognize these as substantive damages.”

The press conference also included the sharing of a statement written by victims as they looked back over the year since Cho’s arrest in March. In it, they talked about it having been “incredibly frustrating watching the way [the media] presented information about the victimization and the methods used by the perpetrators as though it was ‘gossip.’”

“They would reconstruct and repeatedly show moments that we never want to remember, and we had to hear all about Cho Ju-bin’s life like he was some kind of hero,” they lamented.

The victims also commented on internet posts that caused additional damages by assigning responsibility to their victims.

“There were so many inaccuracies, and there were times when we wanted to scream, ‘This isn’t real,’” they said, before going on to urge the court to “set an example so that this sort of social evil never happens again.”

After hearing about the trial result that day, women in their 20s and 30s agreed that “what happens next is more important.” A 31-year-old office worker surnamed Choi said, “The victims suffered scars that will never be erased as long as they live.”

“I hope that this [ruling] becomes an example in cases of sex crimes so that stern punishments are handed down in future trials as well,” she added.

By Park Yoon-kyung and Lee Jae-ho, staff reporters

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