Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bassexpander]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/09/113_31453.html

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I'm pretty sure this is just a matter of more cases being reported and a couple of systemic problems being exposed last year. I wonder if it also reflects more middle and high schools becoming mixed.

It's a good thing they don't count ddong-chim as sexual assault or the rate would be more like 100%.

[bassexpander]

The thing that stands out: 35 GANG RAPES!

How many gang rapes happen back home? Per capita, that number is just huge. Obviously, there is a breakdown in the system here. Students are not being punished because Korea doesn't want to lose face.

They may soon find themselves to be the gang-rape hub of Asia, if they aren't already.

[Cornfed]

Are these mostly gang rapes of girls by boys or what?

[Gamecock]

I wonder about the translation here. I think this is a mistake. What the writer calls gang rape may not be the same thing we are all thinking. There were 67 total sexual assault cases reported and 35 of them were gang rapes. I doubt it.

At least I hope this is not correct!

[bassexpander]

I believe the information is correct. They made a specific point of highlighting that information, and discussing it in the article.

[PeteJB]

A better question is why now suddenly? And kids at that. Barely even teenagers? What influence has caused it? Hmm.

[drunkenfud]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[SHANE02]

[bassexpander]

YBS, start allowing blood-money for gang rape. That would end the practice right quick!

[PeteJB]

US porn? Hm not sure, it always comes across as by the book Western porn. But Japan AV is pretty crazy. That being said does the media really have that much of an influence on a person? Studies in Japan show that exposure to "naughty porn" help to reduce crime rates as opposed to amplifying them. And I thought AV was illegal to posses in Korea.

[rebel_1812]

how can there be sexual assualt here. I thought this was a very conservative culture and most people waited until marriage before sex.

[Sushi]

From another site. I remember reading this in a Korean Newspaper too. It might also be somewhere else on DAVES

From a major Korean newspaper

Children raping other children in epidemic of youth crime

April 14, 2007

A recent series of disturbing sex crimes committed by teenagers have worried and saddened many Koreans, because the rapists are shockingly young and some of the incidents took place in classrooms during school hours. These middle-school rapists showed little remorse for their acts, police and psychologist who questioned them said, with some of the young criminals viewing gang rape as part of growing up.
Others, investigators say, are acting out scenes from pornographic movies they find on the Internet.
The number of sexual crimes committed by teenage students has risen steadily, but an incident at a middle school in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi province, shocked the nation last month. Gapyeong police said six male students were accused of the serial rape of a female student over a two month period.
The school only had 30 students in each class, and the offenders and the victim were classmates, police said. Of the six students, four were arrested for criminal investigation.
According to the police, the nightmare for the 14-year-old victim began in January when one of her classmates sexually abused her. Using that incident as a point of vunerability, the boy and his friends began raping her repeatedly.
The police said the crimes all took place inside the school compound with as many as four boys raping her each time. The last episode took place on March 15. During lunch hour, three boys raped her in an empty classroom, the police said, adding that afterwards the offenders and the victim went back to class and finished the school day.
The victim finally told a teacher about the abuse on March 21, and her parents were immediately notified. Police began investigating the next day, and they soon arrested four boys for committing rape at least six times over two months. One classmate was investigated as a witness and another 13-year-old boy was sent to Family Court, because he was below age 14. In Korea, those under 14 cannot be punished under the criminal code.
An officer with the Gapyeong police said he was extremely shocked while questioning the boys. ��One boy said he wanted to copy a scene from an adult movie that he saw on the Internet,�� the police officer said. ��It was chilling because he did not appear to understand the seriousness and the cruelty of his crime.��
The victim is currently undergoing medical and psychological treatment.
The shocking case in Gapyeong, however, is only one example of recent sexual crimes committed by teenagers.
In Gwangju, 19 high school students and six middle school students were investigated on March 30 on charges of repeatedly raping a 14-year-old classmate since August.
On February 28, six teenagers were arrested by the Namyangju police in Gyeonggi province on charges of raping a middle school girl at a drinking party.
The victim was left unconscious and eventually found dead.
No more than a month later, in the same city, another group of six middle school boys lured a 14-year-old female classmate to a secluded area and abused her. The boys approached the girl at an Internet cafe and forced her to drink with them at a nearby playground. One of the boys raped her in a wooded area, while five others sexually assaulted her, the police said.
��I have interviewed the boys in the Namyangju cases as a part of the police investigation, and clearly these young boys appear to think gang rape is a new coming-of-age ceremony,�� Lee Soo-jung, a criminal psychology professor with Kyonggi University, said. ��When you closely follow the cases, you can see that their methods are the same.
They pick one of their classmates and force her to drink soju. When she becomes unconscious, they rape her in turn,�� Lee said.
The pattern, Lee added, has spread among middle school boys because the teenagers ��bragged about their experiences�� at school and in Internet chat rooms.
Lee is also worried because the teenage rapists are becoming younger. ��It used to be high school boys who were involved in sexual crimes, now you see more and more middle schoolers,�� Lee said. ��Many of the boys are having their first sexual experience through gang rapes with their friends; that is really a serious problem.��
The statistics back her concerns. The number of teenage rapists went up more than 300 percent in less than a decade, from 567 cases in 1999 to 1,810 in 2006, according to National Police Agency data. The police also confirmed the trend towards younger rapists, noting that more middle school students, many below age 14, are committing sexual crimes, while the number of rapists who are 19 years old has gone down in recent years.
The trend worries many people, and some have suggested lowering the criminal age limit to allow punishment of those below 14. Justice Minister Kim Sung-ho said Wednesday that ��lowering the age limit won��t simply resolve all problems, but I will seriously review the proposal.��
Kim also said he would seek a provision to hold parents legally responsible for crimes committed by underage children under their protection.
Teenage sex crimes were addressed by lawmakers and administration officials at the National Assembly session on Wednesday.
Grand National Representative Moon Hee asked Prime Minister Han Duk-soo about the administration��s plan to stop such shocking crimes. Moon recommended that the ��school police�� system be expanded to all schools, and Han said ��it will be positively considered.��
The school police program was launched in 2005 as a pilot program. Funded by the Education Ministry and operated by regional governments, the school police are supposed to prevent crimes in schools through awareness programs and counseling activities.
The ministry supported the system at 100 schools last year, and said it will expand the program to at least 42 more schools nationwide this year. Retired police or teachers work in the program and also assist local police by informing them when a crime takes place in the school.
Han also promised to increase the manpower devoted to a crackdown on pornography that is openly available to youngsters through the Internet.
Kim Shin-il, deputy prime minister for education, also apologized for the incident in Gapyeong. ��The administration is trying to enact a law to compensate a victim for such a crime,�� Kim said, but he stopped short of having the state accept blame. ��We have to conduct a legal review to find out if the state is responsible for everything that takes place inside a school,�� he said.
While Kim believes the government may not necessarily be responsible for crimes committed inside a school during school hours, Kyonggi University��s Lee said there is no excuse.
��The Education Ministry obviously does not understand how bad the situation has become,�� Lee said. ��They just don��t understand. School police may sound good, but there is no excuse for the teachers because the rapes took place while the children should be under their supervision.��
She said sex crimes are becoming contagious and spreading like an epidemic among youngsters. It will take more than school police to stop the disease, she said, adding that the leniency of the criminal law toward minors is also a critical problem.
��Because they are young, some are not indicted due to the age limit and they are easily forgiven after a short correctional session,�� Lee said. ��Then, they think they can get away with the crimes. The government must intervene �� the earlier the better �� and make it clear that the crime will be punished sternly.��
She said the repeat rate for sex crime offenders is particularly high, and dropping charges against the young rapists due to the age limit only provides room for them to do it again. ��The entire nation is responsible for our teenagers,�� she said.
��When I interviewed the teenage rapists, they said they could not stop thinking about the images they saw on the porno sites,�� Lee said. ��Adults created the situation by letting them access such Internet sites. The government must come up with technology to block teenagers from porn sites. This may also sound basic, but cracking down on alcohol sales to minors is also key.��
Another psychologist said counseling and therapy are effective tools to stop the recurrence of sexual crimes by teenagers. Song Won-young, a psychology professor at Konyang University, published a paper in February that followed the history of 316 teenagers who committed sexual crimes. Of those who received no counseling, 24.1 percent repeated their crimes, but only 8.8 percent of those who underwent therapy repeated the crime, he said.
Song conducted the research for the National Youth Commission, and he also contributed in creating a counseling manual in 2005 to help rehabilitate young rapists. The commission said the Justice Ministry will use the manual at all youth prisons nationwide as a preventive measure.
��Depending on whether or not a teenage rapist underwent psychological therapy, the repeat rate for a sex crime can triple,�� Song said. ��This shows the importance of therapy and counseling for teenage sex offenders.��

[Summer Wine]

Korean porn and sexual movies in many cases seem to advocate a rape based culture. One movie I watched one time called first time sexual experiences had 4 rapes out of 5, with them ranging from date rape to total stranger.

Turn on the television after 12.00 pm and many movies seem to have a rape based sexual experience (those are korean movies). I think its wrong to base it solely on the Japanese or the US.

The Koreans have a culture of group sex from their military days and most men see nothing wrong with it, based from my experiences in this country.