Gyeonggi-do Supported 489 Digital Sex Crime Victims Last Year... Counseling and Video Deletion Services Provided

Gyeonggi Province provided 18,662 cases of support last year through the ‘Digital Sexual Crime Victim One-Stop Support Center,’ assisting 489 individuals with counseling, deletion of harmful videos, legal support, investigation linkage, and psychological healing. The 489 victims included 303 newly registered cases and 186 individuals who have been continuously supported since the center opened in 2021.

Among the 303 newly supported victims last year, 224 were women, accounting for 73.9% of the total. By age group, teenagers numbered 132, making up 43.6%. This was followed by 87 people in their 20s (28.7%), 38 in their 30s (12.5%), 13 in their 40s (4.3%), and 10 in their 50s (3.3%).

The center provided support for these victims in the form of 13,704 deletion supports (73.4%), 4,386 counseling supports (23.5%), 205 safety accompaniment and investigation supports (1.1%), 30 legal supports (0.2%), 246 psychological healing programs (1.3%), 44 medical expense supports (0.2%), and 47 linkages to related organizations (0.3%), totaling 18,862 cases.

Regarding the types of victimization (multiple responses possible), anxiety about distribution was the most common with 217 cases (30.6%). This was followed by distribution of harmful videos with 116 cases (16.4%), threats of distribution with 84 cases (11.8%), illegal filming with 79 cases (11.1%), “Mokcam Phishing” (extortion of money through threats using video chat footage) with 57 cases (8%), online grooming with 36 cases (5.1%), and illegal synthesis and identity theft with 36 cases (5.1%).

Current Status of Support for Victims of Digital Sexual Crimes in Gyeonggi Province

Meanwhile, the types of perpetrators were 116 cases (38.3%) involving temporary relationships such as online or one-time encounters. This was followed by intimate relationships such as ex-spouses and ex-lovers with 55 cases (18.2%), social relationships met at school or workplace with 54 cases (17.8%), and strangers with 37 cases (12.2%).

Looking at deletion support by platform, adult sites accounted for 7,338 cases (65.5%), search engines 1,889 cases (16.9%), others 1,521 cases (13.6%), social networking services (SNS) 346 cases (3.1%), and P2P (peer-to-peer file sharing sites) 108 cases (1%).

In addition, Gyeonggi Province conducted 83 prevention and response training sessions for 4,374 people, including workers and users of women’s violence-related organizations, teachers at elementary, middle, and high schools in the province, and Gyeonggi residents. A 31-member citizen response monitoring group was formed to monitor harmful posts related to digital sexual crimes on search engines and SNS, reporting a total of 4,221 cases to strengthen digital sexual crime response capabilities.

Starting in May, Gyeonggi Province will operate the Gyeonggi Gender Violence Integrated Response Center, which will comprehensively handle gender violence such as digital sexual crimes, stalking, dating violence, sexual violence, and prostitution?from victim intake and tailored service support to systematic institutional linkage and violence prevention.