While more than 5,400 people were arrested for spy camera related crimes last year, fewer than 2% of those held were jailed. Law enforcement officials in South Korea have said that it is difficult to catch perpetrators ‑ especially as they can install cameras, and take them down again within 15 minutes. However, staff who maintain restrooms will now also be required to check public toilets for spy cameras daily. Seoul's public toilets are currently only inspected for hidden cameras about once a month. There have been several protests against spy camera porn this yearĪctivists say women live in constant fear of being photographed or filmed without their knowledge.Ībout 80% of the victims of spy camera porn are women. The videos are often uploaded online without the knowledge of the victims.Įarlier this year, tens of thousands of women protested against hidden cameras, carrying signs with messages like "my life is not your porn". Secret cameras in toilets and changing rooms are a serious problem in South Korea ‑ with more than 6,000 cases of "spy cam porn" reported last year. “It is true that the investigations of our police authorities have been somewhat loose and that the punishments were not too severe even when such crimes were exposed,” Moon was reported as saying in May by the South Korean news agency Yonhap, adding that illicit recordings should be considered a “serious” and “malicious” crime.The South Korean capital, Seoul, has pledged to carry out daily checks in all public toilets for hidden cameras. Some said a boys’ club culture permeated the way police handled these crimes, often letting men go without being charged in cases where there was no physical violence. Many women are calling for harsher punishments for perpetrators, in addition to the removal of hidden cameras. They are also the subjects of so-called revenge porn, in which private photos are shared on the internet by jilted lovers, and “upskirting,” in which perpetrators use smartphones to photograph women’s crotches while in public places. Women said the hidden cameras are but one 21st-century form of harassment. Women’s rights rallies in Seoul in May and June drew thousands of protesters. The “spy camera” crackdown comes amid mounting pressure on the government of President Moon Jae-in to take steps to better protect women. Perpetrators, police said, often leave devices in place very briefly, perhaps for only 15 minutes at a time. Currently, most toilets are inspected only once a month, and government inspectors have not discovered a single recording device in the past two years. The government’s previous attempts to locate hidden cameras have been lackluster. “I don’t think the new measures will be effective because finding and getting rid of the hidden cameras in the public restrooms will not solve the problem.” “I have never felt safe about going to public bathrooms ever since I was a college student,” Choi Yoon-jeong, 34, said. Many women avoid going to public toilets alone, especially at night. A thousand public restrooms have been placed on a “special monitoring” list, so that “female safety guards can do intensive checks,” according to the government. More than 30,000 cases of surreptitious filming have been reported nationally since 2013, according to police statistics.īeginning next month, workers will check more than 20,000 public restrooms, in subways, parks, community centers, public gyms and underground commercial arcades. The city has promised to inspect every one of its 20,554 public restrooms daily, an enormous undertaking that underscores the scope of the problem. “It is to help citizens to feel safe when they use the public restrooms, free from concerns about spy cams,” the Seoul Metropolitan Government said in a statement. Victims of such crimes are often strangers in spaces like toilet stalls, public transit or changing rooms. Daily illegal spy cameras are placed and found throughout public spaces. The city announced a crackdown Sunday, increasing the number of municipal employees assigned to search public bathrooms for hidden cameras to 8,000 in October from the 50 currently at work. In fact, in 2017, the Korean National Police recorded more than 6,000 cases of unauthorized filming for sexual content. South Korea’s spy cam crisis, also known as the Molka crisis, persists despite the country’s democratization. In Seoul, the capital, the proliferation of such hidden cameras - and the images they record, which often end up on pornographic websites - has often been described by reporters as an epidemic.
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