20s Man Sentenced to Prison for Following and Sexually Harassing High School Girl, 'Only Targeted Her Feet'

Loitering Around High School Searching for Crime Targets
Following One Victim to Their Home Entrance

A man in his 20s who followed high school girls and touched their toes, showing an obsession with feet, was sentenced to prison.

On the 7th, the Criminal Division 2 of Jeju District Court (Presiding Judge Hong Eun-pyo) sentenced Mr. A, a man in his 20s who was detained and prosecuted on charges including violation of the Act on the Protection of Children and Juveniles from Sexual Abuse (forcible molestation), to 1 year and 6 months in prison, according to Yonhap News. The court also ordered Mr. A to undergo 5 years of probation and imposed a 5-year employment restriction at institutions related to children, adolescents, and the disabled.

Jeju District Court Exterior

On June 7th around 2 p.m., Mr. A wandered around a high school area in Jeju City, looking for victims. He followed a high school girl walking alone and touched her feet, and then followed another high school girl and touched her toes, resulting in charges of molesting two students. During this process, it was reported that Mr. A even followed one victim to her home entrance, forcibly removed her socks, and touched her toes.

Investigations revealed that Mr. A suffers from a paraphilia characterized by sexual obsession with specific body parts such as feet. Because of this, he targeted victims wearing slippers. During the trial, Mr. A’s defense claimed he committed the acts in a state of diminished mental capacity, which the court acknowledged based on psychiatric treatment records. The court stated, "The crime is serious as the victims are merely high school students who were treated as objects of sexual desire," but also considered that one victim accepted a criminal deposit and that Mr. A has no prior criminal record.

Meanwhile, from 2019 to June this year, approximately 2,500 people have been treated for paraphilic disorders such as paraphilia, voyeurism, and exhibitionism. Among them, 8 out of 10 were in their 20s to 40s.

On September 29th, Park Hee-seung, a member of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, analyzed data submitted by the National Health Insurance Service and found that a total of 2,455 people received treatment for paraphilic disorders from 2019 to the end of June this year. By age group, those in their 20s accounted for the largest number at 749 (30.5%), followed by those in their 30s with 747 (30.4%), and those in their 40s with 437 (17.8%). Those aged 10 and under numbered 210 (8.6%).

By type (multiple responses allowed), unspecified paraphilic disorders were the most common with 928 cases (36.6%). This was followed by voyeurism, where the observed person is unaware, with 627 cases (24.7%), and exhibitionism, involving exposing one’s body to others or in public places, with 514 cases (20.3%). Other paraphilias such as obscene phone calls, rubbing one’s body against others in public places, or sexual acts with animals accounted for 181 cases (7.1%). Pedophilia, a sexual preference for boys or girls, was treated in 108 cases (4.3%), fetishistic disorder in 93 cases (3.7%), fetishistic transvestism in 56 cases (2.2%), multiple paraphilic disorders in 16 cases (0.6%), and sadomasochism in 14 cases (0.6%).