"21% of Children and Adolescents Directly Exposed to Digital Sexual Crimes"… Seoul City Launches Integrated Support for Prevention, Counseling, and Removal

Establishment of 'Digital Sexual Crime Victim Integrated Support Center' in the First Half of Next Year
Survey of 4,012 Children and Adolescents Shows Sexual Message and Photo Transmission as Most Common Harm

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] One in five elementary, middle, and high school students in Seoul has been directly exposed to the risk of digital sexual crimes through chatting or SNS.

On the 30th, Seoul conducted a survey on the actual damage caused by digital sexual crimes targeting 4,012 elementary, middle, and high school students, and 856 students, or 21.3%, responded that they had been exposed to such risks.

Among children and adolescents exposed to digital sexual crimes, the largest group, 56.4%, reported having received sexual messages or sexually explicit photos. 27.2% said they had been continuously contacted unilaterally online and asked to meet. Cases of sexual images being distributed or threatened with distribution accounted for 4.8%, and 4.3% reported receiving proposals such as "If you send sexual photos or have sexual relations, I will give you money."

Furthermore, 47.6% of female children and adolescents responded that measures are needed to prevent the spread of victimized footage online, and among high school girls, 51% raised the need for deletion support.

Based on the results of this survey, Seoul plans to strengthen support for child and adolescent victims and establish and operate the "Seoul Metropolitan City Digital Sexual Crime Victim Integrated Support Center" next year. This institution will provide integrated support ranging from prevention activities and expert counseling to deletion support of victimized footage, which is most needed by digital sexual crime victims.

The "Seoul Metropolitan City Digital Sexual Crime Victim Integrated Support Center" will be operated by 15 professionals divided into three teams: counseling support team, deletion support team, and prevention environment creation team. It will build an organic cooperation system with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, the Korea Communications Standards Commission, and others to enhance the efficiency of integrated support from prevention to counseling and deletion support.

In particular, to support the deletion of victimized footage, IT experts will be hired, and plans will be made to develop deletion technologies in the future. As victimized footage moves from existing webhards to SNS, priority will be given to developing technologies that can support deletion centered on SNS and similar platforms. Also, considering that most victims do not know how to respond to digital sexual crime damage, a "victim-only hotline" will be opened within the institution to further strengthen one-stop support by "visiting support companions."

Additionally, according to the "Child and Adolescent Internet Usage Status and Digital Sexual Crime Damage Survey" conducted by Seoul, 47.2% of children and adolescents felt that online spaces were safe, and 70.9% thought that even strangers could become friends through the internet. Seoul diagnosed that "children and adolescents consider the online space as a 'playground' where they can safely obtain desired information and play, and due to the nature of online anonymity being believed to be guaranteed, children and adolescents are easily exposed to digital sexual crimes."

In fact, 41.4% of children and adolescents had experience becoming close to strangers through the internet, and 13.9% had actually met them. Children and adolescents shared their worries with people they met online (44.7%), felt closer to them than school friends (10.9%), and felt they were in a loving relationship (2.5%).

Children and adolescents indiscriminately encounter sexual photos or videos on the internet, with the highest percentage first encountering them in the 6th grade of elementary school at 23%, followed by 5th grade of elementary school (21.1%) and 1st grade of middle school (20.6%), generally all encountering them through the internet during elementary school. The internet media where sexual content was encountered were SNS (50.3%), internet personal broadcasting (49.3%), and portal sites (29.8%) in that order.

Accordingly, Seoul analyzed that with the recent increase in internet usage time among children and adolescents due to COVID-19, the risk of exposure to digital sexual crimes targeting minors, such as the Telegram "Nth Room case," is also increasing. It judged that the pattern of "online grooming," where perpetrators use personal information as a means of coercion to exploit photos or videos, is becoming prominent.

However, 27.5% of children and adolescents who were victims of digital sexual crimes responded that they "did not take any action," the highest proportion, while 25.9% said they "blocked the perpetrator's account," and 15% said they "did not use the relevant online media," responding only on a personal level. The main reason for not responding to digital sexual crime damage was "not knowing what to do," at 78.5%, followed by "not believing that reporting or counseling would properly resolve the issue," at 11.7%.

Kim Seon-soon, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Women and Family Policy Office, said, "The current generation of children and adolescents is familiar with digital culture from an early age, and with the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic increasing the time spent at home, they are defenselessly exposed to the risks of digital crimes." She added, "Seoul will build the foundation for a 'Safe Seoul without Digital Sexual Crimes' by establishing an integrated support center for digital sexual crime victims, providing comprehensive victim support from prevention to deletion assistance."

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