Child and Adolescent Sexual Crime Victims Reach Highest Level in 10 Years... Lenient Punishments Persist

Highest Record Since 2011
Victims Under 15, Up 50.4%
54% of Defendants Sentenced to Probation

The number of children and adolescents aged 15 and under who have been victims of sexual crimes has reached its highest level in 10 years. However, it has been revealed that more than half of the defendants prosecuted for sexual crimes against children and adolescents received suspended sentences, prompting calls for tougher penalties.

According to the National Police Agency on the 23rd, the number of sexual crime victims aged 15 and under last year was 2,489, the largest figure since 2011 (1,655). The number of victims aged 15 and under had been steadily decreasing since 2013 (2,147) but reversed to an upward trend after 2021 (1,793), increasing for three consecutive years. The number of sexual crime victims aged 12 and under also hit a record high since 2011. Last year, the number of victims aged 12 and under was 1,325, marking a 36.8% increase compared to 2011.

Despite the increase in the number of victims, punishments for sexual crimes against children and adolescents remain lenient. An analysis by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of 2,913 court rulings in 2022 for defendants convicted of sexual crimes against children and adolescents under 19 years old found that 54.8% of the prosecuted suspects received suspended sentences. By crime type, 74% of suspects charged with purchasing sex from minors and 61% of those charged with producing and distributing sexual exploitation materials received suspended sentences. Even for violent crimes such as rape and sexual assault, only about half of the suspects (49% and 58%, respectively) were given suspended sentences.

The reason for the low severity of punishments for sexual crimes against children and adolescents is analyzed to be the frequent reduction of sentences during trials. In fact, the gap between the judiciary's legal perception and the public's sense of justice sometimes influences sentence reductions. In particular, many defendants receive reduced sentences on the grounds that there was no violence or threats during statutory rape of minors.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

In cases of statutory rape of minors, unlike general rape charges, the crime is established even without the use of physical force (violence or threats), but in actual trials, the absence of violence or threats affects sentencing. A representative case is a man in his 20s who was tried in 2022 for taking a middle school student to a lodging facility and having sexual intercourse multiple times, yet was given a suspended sentence. The Uijeongbu District Court, which handled the case, considered the fact that the defendant did not use physical force or coercive acts as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Min Go-eun, Human Rights Director of the Korean Women Lawyers Association, said, "There are cases where the court mentions that the defendant did not use violence or threats against the minor victim as a reason for sentence reduction in statutory rape cases involving minors," adding, "Citing the presence or absence of physical force as a reason for sentence reduction disregards the legal intent to strongly protect children and adolescents from sexual crimes."

Some argue that as the nature of sexual crimes is changing, more detailed sentencing guidelines for child sexual crimes are necessary. Song Hye-mi, a lawyer at the law firm Opes, emphasized, "Recently, various types of sexual crimes such as stalking and dating violence have occurred in addition to sexual violence," and added, "Rather than allowing subtle differences in sentencing based on the judge's discretion on the same level, it is necessary to decide sentences according to more detailed criteria."

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