During "Sex Trade Eradication Week," Seoul Citizen Surveillance Team Detects 54,152 Sex Trade Solicitation Advertisements

‘Online Prostitution Prevention Campaign’ Held
Active Online Citizen Surveillance Despite COVID-19, Detection Cases Increase by 40% Compared to Last Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seoul City announced on the 24th that it will conduct a 15-day online awareness campaign titled “Wise Surveillance Life: COVID-19 Risk, Quarantine Prostitution!” from September 24 to October 8 to expand public consensus on prostitution prevention and increase citizen reporting participation in observance of Prostitution Eradication Week.

This online campaign was planned with the purpose of encouraging citizens to directly find and report prostitution inducement advertisements that cleverly evade crackdowns and move online and underground despite the COVID-19 situation, thereby jointly quarantining prostitution.

The campaign is conducted through cooperation between Seoul City and the Municipal Dasihamkke Counseling Center, in collaboration with autonomous districts, the Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization, websites of support institutions for victims of prostitution and at-risk teenage women, blogs, and SNS. It provides guidance on how to report prostitution advertisements on SNS through card news and videos, and an event is held where 200 people who write messages supporting prostitution prevention are selected by lottery to receive convenience store mobile coupons.

Additionally, Seoul City operates various prostitution prevention projects that allow citizens to easily monitor and report uncomfortable and harmful information such as prostitution inducement advertisements found in daily life.

Since 2011, Seoul has operated the “Internet Citizen Surveillance Group,” which involves citizens in monitoring illegal sex industries. The newly recruited 1,000 members of the “Seoul Internet Citizen Surveillance Group” this year include citizens from various fields such as housewives, university students, office workers, freelancers, and activists, with age groups ranging widely from their 20s to 70s.

As online usage has increased due to COVID-19, illegal advertisements have also surged. The “Internet Citizen Surveillance Group” detected 54,152 prostitution inducement advertisements in the first half of this year alone, a 40% increase compared to the same period last year. Seoul City reported 49,443 of these to regulatory agencies.

By category, outcall massage, dating agency, and conditional meeting brokerage/promotions accounted for the largest number with 39,847 cases (80.6%). Advertisements that lure customers to establishments through suggestive prostitution terms, price conditions, contact information, and user reviews numbered 6,276 (12.7%), user review advertisements for prostitution brokerage sites were 2,218 (4.5%), and illegal obscene materials without youth access restrictions were 1,102 (2.2%).

Online prostitution inducement advertisements featured phrases prioritizing “hygiene” and “safety” related to COVID-19 or disguised themselves as “massage establishments,” which are classified as free businesses not requiring administrative permits, exploiting quarantine blind spots. They advertised under names like “outcall massage” and “massage establishments,” continuing operations regardless of business restrictions such as gathering bans.

Furthermore, this year, surveillance on prostitution establishments’ brokerage and advertisements was strengthened, resulting in 91 reports against owners, site operators, and related parties. Seoul City established the nation’s first “Illegal Sex Industry Surveillance Headquarters” within the Dasihamkke Counseling Center to enhance the professionalism of reporting activities by collecting additional evidence and providing legal advice based on citizen-monitored data. Over the past six years, this has led to 657 administrative actions, 236 criminal prosecutions, and fines and confiscations totaling 1.86555 billion KRW.

Seoul City also organizes an offline citizen surveillance group called “Watching You,” which monitors illegal prostitution establishments in local communities and operates a citizen surveillance network reporting illegal outdoor advertisements. This year, “Watching You” (28 members) discovered 58 cases of illegal advertising facilities installed by new and variant prostitution establishments as promotional tools, including unreported establishment signage (violating the Public Health Act), unauthorized, non-compliant, and youth-harmful outdoor advertisements. They reported 19 cases, resulting in the removal of 11 facilities by the relevant district offices.

Kim Seon-soon, Director of the Seoul City Women and Family Policy Office, said, “To eradicate the illegal sex industry, citizens must not overlook prostitution advertisements and facilities encountered in daily life but should monitor and report them together. Through this online campaign, we aim to raise social awareness and expand public consensus on prostitution prevention. We ask for the active interest and participation of citizens.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.