4% of teenagers in South Korea were asked to send sexual images: survey

SEOUL: Amid growing concerns about digital sex crimes in South Korea, 3.9 percent of middle and high school students across the country said they had been asked to send or share sexual images, a government survey found.

The Ministry of Equality and Family announced on July 4 the results of the 2023 survey on the awareness and experiences of children and young people regarding sexual exploitation.

A total of 4,757 middle and high school students nationwide took part in the most recent survey, which is conducted every three years in accordance with Article 53 of the Youth Sexual Protection Act.

Of these, 14.4 percent of respondents stated that they had unintentionally been confronted with sexual images of minors while surfing the Internet.

The most common source of these experiences was social media, which accounted for 68.3 percent.

Four in 100 have been asked by someone to send or share sexual images of themselves, and this was more likely to come from someone they only knew online than from an offline acquaintance.

The study also showed that girls were more vulnerable to such experiences: 5.8 percent of female respondents had had such experiences, compared to 2.2 percent of boys.

Overall, 2.7 percent of sexual images were taken by someone without their consent, with more people being coerced or forced by someone they knew (1.7 percent) than by a stranger in a public place (1.1 percent).

In 1.1 percent of cases, the sexual image was shared or distributed.

0.6 percent were threatened or forced to distribute sexual images.

The most common type of threat or coercion was through “offline meetings,” which accounted for 24.7 percent, followed by requests to show more sexual images (23.9 percent), interference with daily life (17.3 percent), requests to show sexual images or videos of acquaintances (14.4 percent), and requests to have sex (12.3 percent). THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK