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| This screenshot shows a statement that investigative agencies from 32 countries have closed down a child pornography website named "Welcome to Video." A 23-year-old Korean surnamed Son was found to have established and run the platform with obscene content featuring children, but the courts' light punishment he received from Korean courts has caused a controversy both here and abroad. / Courtesy of National Police Agency |
By Kim Jae-heun
The gender equality ministry has called for sentencing guidelines related to child pornography crimes, following criticism that the Korean judiciary is too lenient on the perpetrators.
Gender Equality and Family Minister Lee Jung-ok met with Kim Young-ran, chairwoman of the Sentencing Commission, Tuesday, to discuss the issue.
The commission under the Supreme Court establishes sentencing guidelines which judges can refer to when deciding on a punishment. It has come up with guidelines for about 20 crimes, such as murder, bribery, sexual violence, fraud, embezzlement and Election Law violations, but there haven't been any about crimes involving making, distributing and possessing child pornography.
The current law stipulates punishment for criminals dealing with child pornography, but many of the criminals avoid prison sentences and get a slap on the wrist, the ministry said.
"Minister Lee said courts need to consider public consensus for heavy punishment for child porn-related crimes because the victims are children," according to a statement from the ministry.
Currently courts often reduce punishments for people convicted of sex crimes by citing factors such as the offenders' abusive family background or it being their first offense, but there should be stricter rules for reflecting such things in sentencing, she said.
The meeting between Lee and Kim came after the results of an international investigation revealed that a 23-year-old Korean surnamed Son was the manager of a dark web child porn site.
The cooperative investigation ― conducted by law enforcement agencies in 32 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Korea ― arrested 310 people from 32 countries for using the website, 223 of whom were South Korean.
At a local court, Son was give two years in prison suspended for three years. The court set the light sentence, saying Son was young and had no previous record and much of the child pornography was posted by other site members.
In an appellate court trial, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. The court said Son had financially and mentally hard times when growing up, and now has a family to support.
Many Koreans said the courts were too lenient considering the serious nature of the crimes, and the ruling led to a petition on the Cheong Wa Dae website calling for harsh punishment for Son and the website users, which received over 306,000 signatures.
In the last Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal an article also condemned the Korean courts' weak punishment related to child pornography.
It said that even though two thirds of the arrested site users were South Korean, they mostly ended up receiving fines of thousands of dollars.
According to the Wall Street Journal, an American man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing child pornography and attempting to sexually exploit a teen, and an English man was given 40 months of imprisonment for possessing child pornography images and an illegal drug.
