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

SEOUL - Amid growing concerns over digital sex crimes in South Korea, 3.9 per cent of middle and high school students nationwide say they have been asked to send or share sexual images, a state survey showed.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced on July 4 the results of the 2023 survey on awareness and experience of child and youth concerning sexual exploitation.

The latest survey, which is conducted every three years in accordance with Article 53 of the Youth Sexual Protection Act, involved 4,757 middle and high school students nationwide.

Of these, 14.4 per cent of the respondents said they had been unintentionally exposed to sexual images of minors while using the internet.

The most common source of exposure came from social media, which accounted for 68.3 per cent of such experience.

Four out of 100 had been asked by someone to send or share sexual images of themselves. This was more likely to be from someone they only knew online than from an offline acquaintance.

It also showed girls were more prone to the experience – 5.8 per cent of female respondents had such experience, compare with 2.2 per cent for boys.

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

The sexual image was shared or distributed in 1.1 per cent of the cases.

Meanwhile, 0.6 per cent were threatened or coerced to distribute sexual images.

The most common type of threat or coercion was via “offline meeting”, which accounted for 24.7 per cent, followed by requests for additional sexual images (23.9 per cent), interference in daily life (17.3 per cent), requests for sexual images or videos of acquaintances (14.4 per cent), and requests for sex (12.3 per cent). THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK