“Do not upload adult porn.” This is a phrase written on the recently closed sexual exploitation videos of the non-adults site “Welcome to Video.” In other words, the site only deals with sexual exploitation videos of non-adults. It has been found that the majority of the website operators and the majority of users who distribute and sell such videos are Korean. It is more shocking that they were punished much less than international standards. Let's find out why the punishment level is so low in Korea, and how other countries are making penalties.

Consumption of Child Sexual Exploitation Video in Korea

‘WelCome to Video’ Affair

On October 17, 2019, Korean, US, and British investigators arrested ‘Korean Son,’ 23, and 337 users, 223 of them Koreans, in 12 countries. They had distributed and operated over 250,000 child sexual exploitation videos using the now-closed secret site Dark Web. Dark Web refers to web areas that are inaccessible to ordinary Internet web browsers. It is only accessable through a specific browser and encrypted IP address, so it is completely anonymous and difficult to track. In this case, Son was sentenced to one year and six months' imprisonment in South Korea in May 2018 on charges of selling child sexual exploitation videos by the Sexual Protection of Children and Adolescents Act (Chid Act). The court explained that because the defendant is young, it reflects on the crime, and it is difficult to believe the crime to be his alone because it contains a lot of pornographic material uploaded by members of the site other than Son. However, there is an increasingly loud call for harsher punishment and public disclosure of child sexual exploitation users. On October 29, 2019, a Blue House National Petition was submitted, which said, “I want proper punishment for Son, who has operated a child pornography site, and for users.”

Soranet Affair

On October 30, 2019, Mr. Song, 40, the operator of ‘Soranet’, the nation's largest (one million members) pornography site, was sentenced to four years in prison at the Supreme Court. 'Soranet' is a site where various crimes have been committed. The site was operated for 13 years and hasshared more than 80,000 illegal pornographic films and 750 child and teen sexual exploitation videos. Song is now on trial for helping to share these videos on the site from 2003 until the site was closed in 2016. Song had to pay  1.4 billion won in fees and fines for criminal proceedings in the first trial. However, in the second trial, the penalty was canceled and the decision was confirmed. The court found that Song's bank account shows insufficient evicence to be considered as revenue from the operation of the ‘Soranet’. Additionally, “grooming” occurred with chatting with children and adolescents on the site, and even though this resulted in sexual exploitation, the public's anger increased even after Song was punished. Grooming refers to the psychological taming of children and adolescents by adults so they become acquainted and willing to have sexual relations with the adults.

As the level of punishment is low, crimes related to child sexual exploitation are increasing rapidly. According to the National Police Agency, the number of crimes related to the production and dissemination of child sexual exploitation videos has soared nearly double a year from 603 in 2017 to 1,172 in 2018. The number of arrests for these crimes also increased significantly from 543 to 1,006 during the same period, and the number of cases reported of possession increased sharply by 62.58% from 441 to 717. In addition, sites that deal with child sexual exploitation are more socially damaging because prostitution is being carried out on children and adolescents. In 2016, a survey on sex trafficking, published by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, examined the methods by which children and adolescents would be 'dating money with adults (including prostitution)'. The survey found that 74.8% were mobile chat apps (60.8%) and online chat sites (14%). In addition, according to the data of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, a growing number of people classified as `` pedophiles, '' which target young children as sexual objects, show that most of them possess child sexual exploitation videos. However, very few of them received hospital treatment. Even when receiving medical treatment, most patients do not voluntarily visit the hospital themselves, but they are forced to enter the hospital due to social controversy. In fact, the total number of crimes related to child sexual exploitation videos, the percentage of people treated with pedophilia still remains at 1%. It is gradually increasing every year from 0.69% (5 persons) in 2015 to 1.03% (13 persons) in 2016, 1.65% (10 persons) in 2017, and 1.79% (21 persons) in 2018 last year, but remains at a very low level.

Excessively low penalty

The courts are doing little more than slapping people on the wrists and putting them back out on the street again. That's obviously a generality. According to the current Child Act, ‘the production, import and export of pornography for children and adolescents shall be subject to sentences of up to life imprisonment or not less than imprisonment for five years.’ Also, when selling, renting, or distributing such video for profit, the convict shall be sentenced to 10 years in prison. Even if there is no commercial purpose, if the video is distributed and provided, the person will be sentenced to seven years' imprisonment or fined up to 50 million won. In the case of simple possession, the penalty level is greatly reduced to imprisonment of less than one year or a fine of less than 20 million won. The penalties for possession were enacted in 2008, which means there would have been no fines ten years ago. This is regarded as a fairly mild crime compared to the crime of invasion and theft, which has a lower limit on imprisonment for one to ten years. More seriously, according to the current law, criminal sites are not subject to the ‘sex offender community notification’ because the pornography site itself is not a “sexual violence crime” against children and adolescents. Even if a sex offender lives next door to us, we cannot receive the information about him. Besides, according to the ICMEC's Report on Online Grooming for Children, Korean legislation does not correctly define online grooming, and there are no related laws. In South Korea, most of the grooming of children and adolescents, who become victims of prostitution, is not regarded as sexual exploitation. Children and adolescents who have been identified as spontaneous offenders of prostitution are actually being detained for juvenile detention, which is practically legal punishment. In this situation, children who have been targeted for prostitution are reluctant to call the police. This information shows that the courts in Korea still have low awareness of child sexual exploitation. Even when penalizing related crimes, the courts are not approaching the victim's point of view, but rather focusing more on whether the person who makes and consumes these videos is for revenue or whether there is a full history of sex crimes.

In practice, the sentence is often determined by the judge's discretion. In the case of actual punishment, most of those who uploaded or sold child sexual exploitation videos were fined. According to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office data, as of 2016, 71% of Korean child adolescent sexual exploitation and distribution indictment  were suspended and not sent to trial. Even when handed over to trial, many were suspended and only about 6 percent were sentenced to imprisonment. In addition, among the nine judgments using the Dark Web during the 2018, seven out of eight cases of the lowest sentence were only  fines between 1.5 million and 3.5 million won. There were only two cases of imprisonment in the ‘Welcome to Video’ case, but all the suspects were sentenced to probation and released. The court even convicted people who had a record of downloading the video but removed it from his computer, saying there was no evidence.

 Again, as the demand for child sexual video increases, child sexual exploitation is bound to increase. In fact, 'Welcome to Video' users needed ‘some points' to download videos, which were earned only by uploading videos themselves, attracting new customers, or becoming paid members with Bitcoin. In this way, the market for child sexual exploitation has been revitalized because it is designed to supply new videos in order for new images to be consumed. The perception of children's sex as an object of consumption that is easily bought and sold in the market proves that Korea's sex sensitivity to children is very low. Actually, Lee Han-gi, director of the Digital Sexual Violence Out (DSO), said, "When the press uses the expression 'child pornography', the public recognizes it as pornography, and the perception that it is sexual violence and sexual exploitation is blurred." According to the ‘Big Kinds’, a news retrieval system operated by the Korea Press Foundation, there were 194 articles containing the words 'child pornography' and 'child pornography' from October 16-30, 2019. This continued keyword-driven exposure of the media has further strengthened the low perception of child gender in our society, which is already prevalent. In our society, children's adolescent sexual exploitation is considered as harmless hobby by simply treating it as a 'sex tape', a product that stimulates sexual desire. For example, the majority of men accused or punished in the 'dark web' case wrote a statement to reduce their sentences, many of them saying, "I just tried to watch the porn." This is not just a male perspective but a cultural one. Just a few months ago, ads that used childhood imagery as a sexual implication were controversial, and many people called it nonsense. On June 28, 2019, Baskin Robbins released a new ice cream ad featuring a girl model wearing colorful makeup and a sleeveless costume. The ad showed a close-up of a girl's lips biting an ice cream spoon, a child's lips slightly smeared with ice cream, or a side view with long hair curled around her neck. Immediately after its release, the advertisement was criticized for using directing techniques that emphasized pedophilia and sex commercialization. Baskin Robbins deleted the video and stopped TV commercials within a day after the commercial was released, but they were punished by the Korea Communications Commission. At the time, most public opinions varied about 'what is uncomfortable', and Baskin Robbins also expressed their shame by posting an apology saying, 'I'm not wrong, but there are many uncomfortable customers, so we apology.’. But Baskin Robbins's plain clothes and familiar expressions are only relevant from an adult's point of view. Exposing an image of a child through advertising media that everyone can see is what makes our society blunt to the sexual targeting of children.

In other countries

Unlike in Korea, producing and distributing videos to children is considered a serious crime abroad. Even if someone has a video, he can get more penalties than imprisonment. There are alo regulationsthat use the cooperation of citizens and companies to block the fundamental route of children's entry into the sexual exploitation market.

Let's look at the United States first.
In November 2017, the Circuit Court of Florida, USA, Daniel Bilka, 26 was sentenced to imprisonment , after being accused of downloading 454 child videos from the Internet. Although Bilka had no other crime record, the court calculated the sum of the sentences for each of Bilka's own children's videos and decided that life imprisonment was appropriate. Moreover, The United States varies from state to state, but child sexual exploitation videos can earn the offender sentences of at least 15 years' imprisonment, and sentences for  commercial distribution are at least 5 to 20 years. In fact, according to the latest US Department of Justice press release, Hiro Flores, who lives in Massachusetts, in the 'Welcome to Video' case, was sentenced to five years in prison with five years of parole eligibility on charges of receiving and possessing child sexual exploitation videos. Parole eligibility is a system that is additionally monitored like probation after serving a sentence. Another criminal in a similar  case, Richard Nikolai Grakowski, Texas, received a single video of child exploitation, but he was punished more severely than sentencing standards, including 70 months in prison and 10 years in Parole eligibility. In this way the US has a high standard of sentencing and a high level of punishment imposed by the courts. In addition, one person, who carries a child sexual exploitation video, is compelled to report his place of residence to the local police, just as with any other convicted sex offender. For example, in Louisiana, the United States, legislation has been enacted that requires sex offenders, including child sexually addicted image holders, to use their social media to indicate their offense, jurisdiction, address, and physical characteristics. Anyone who violates the bill is sentenced to two to ten years in prison or fined up to $1000.

 The UK also has a zero tolerance principle to imprisonment for possession of child sexual videos. Kyle Fox, who produced and distributed child video in “Welcome to Video,” was convicted of a sexual assault and sentenced to 22 years in prison. In the UK, although children do not actually appear, punishment is given to those who distribute or possess virtual pornography made using computer graphics or photo manipulation. They are subject to the same penalties as those who distribute and possess actual child sexual exploitation videos. The UK also wants to increase gender sensitivity by making clear the definition of `child sexual exploitation.' The UK replaced the terms "child prostitution" and "child pornography" with the term "child exploitation" in a revision of the Serious Crime Act in 2015. In addition, it pays attention to exposures through the courts and the media that deal with crimes related to child sexual exploitation. Most recently, in April 2017, a law was passed where groomers were sentenced to two years in prison and automatically registered as sex offenders. That is, they can be caught as criminals in the grooming stage before any sexual activity takes place. Adults 18 years of age or older can monitor minors for online or offline sexual activity, including social media, emails, and letters, to communicate with or induce them to communicate. With the revision of the law, about 80 Internet service providers promised to cooperate, making it easier to spot groomers.

Efforts to eradicate child sexual exploitation

Reflecting public opinion, the government pointed out that it is time for a change. On October 24, 2019, Kang Chang-il, along with Democrats, proposed an amendment to the Child Act. Representative Kang submitted a proposal that to those who simply possesse child sexual exploitation videos be imprisoned for not less than six months and as much as three years or fined less than 30 million won to raise the severity of the sentence. It will also be proposed that there be further increase in punishable offences, such as making, distributing and mediating sexual exploitation of children. Also, the term 'children's pornography' has been replaced by 'child sexual exploitation video'. In the press release, the US and UK clearly emphasized the meaning of 'child sexual exploitation' and 'child abuse' in press releases. On the other hand, the Korean investigative authorities have been criticized for not being aware of child sexual offenses by labeling them as 'child pornography'.

Next, as the Dark Web evolves with technological developments, the barriers to entry of the sexual exploitation market for children and adolescents will be lowered. According to Tormetrics, which provides dark web access statistics, there were 10,000 domestic dark web visitors recorded in early January 2019. Dark Web visitors have grown to 20,000 since July. As a result, you can see the so-called 'dark web crime manual' on various online communities, Twitter, Facebook, social networks (SNS), Youtube, etc. These manuals shows how to avoid investigations from the authorities. In fact, the people who possessed and shared a lot of child pornography in the 'WelCome to Video' case were sharing investigation information and countermeasures in internet cafes while waiting for punishment. In order to prevent this, on November 12, 2019, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defense, and the Vigilante joined forces to draw up a 'Working Agreement for Joint Response to Digital Sex Crimes.' According to this agreement, the Digital Sex Crime Victim Support Center was granted the right to use the 'tracking system such as illegal photographs' operated by the National Police Agency. Through this, the National Police Agency and the Center will be able to jointly assist victims by registering and classifying suspected illegal footage, requesting deletion and blocking. This authority will also be granted to the KAIT. This will allow digital sex crime images to be collected through dark website monitoring to be registered directly with the police system. The collected images will be delivered to the Korea Communications Commission in real time. This information will be sorted and stored in a "public database." It is hoped that if only public databases are provided, it will be easier to find sites distributing videos and to more effectively protect and support victims of child exploitation.

If a crime occurs on the dark web, which is difficult to track, the rights of the Korean police to investigate is limited. The Welcome to Video case also had limited domestic investigation rights and had to cooperate with foreign police authorities. Because of this, close collaboration with overseas police forces should continue. Recently, the National Police Agency's Cyber Safety Bureau held the 2018 International Symposium on Cybercrime of Response (ISCR) and the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) at the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno-gu, Seoul on October 31, 2019. ISCR and VGT were attended by representatives from law enforcement agencies from more than 50 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, Finland and Estonia. In addition, representatives from international organizations such as Interpol, Europol, Council of Europe, ICANN, and global IT companies such as Microsoft and Apple attended. The schedule was private and no details were available. However, there was a presentation on the topic of 'Evolving Cyber Threat: Investigating Cryptocurrency and Darknet' in relation to children and adolescents. The announcement was made by the US Department of Homeland Security, Chainalysis (IT Company that Developed a 'Reactor' Solution for Bitcoin Tracking), the Dutch Police, the Singapore Police, and the Finnish Police. Through these regular meetings, the company promised to create and share international databases such as the Dark Web, and showed willingness of advanced IT companies to cooperate in investigations. Since it is difficult to secure cybersecurity completely through efforts of only one country, such international cooperation must continue.

Sexual exploitation of children and adolescents is both violence and a crime. This severely violates the human rights of children and youth. Many dark web sites still entangle children with irritating keywords. Quick investigations and preventive measures should be in place. Therefore, the unreasonable law of stigmatizing adolescents as “criminals involved in prostitution” should change quickly. This will encourage a socially h

“Do not upload adult porn.” This is a phrase written on the recently closed sexual exploitation videos of the non-adults site “Welcome to Video.” In other words, the site only deals with sexual exploitation videos of non-adults. It has been found that the majority of the website operators and the majority of users who distribute and sell such videos are Korean. It is more shocking that they were punished much less than international standards. Let's find out why the punishment level is so low in Korea, and how other countries are making penalties.

Consumption of Child Sexual Exploitation Video in Korea

‘WelCome to Video’ Affair

On October 17, 2019, Korean, US, and British investigators arrested ‘Korean Son,’ 23, and 337 users, 223 of them Koreans, in 12 countries. They had distributed and operated over 250,000 child sexual exploitation videos using the now-closed secret site Dark Web. Dark Web refers to web areas that are inaccessible to ordinary Internet web browsers. It is only accessable through a specific browser and encrypted IP address, so it is completely anonymous and difficult to track. In this case, Son was sentenced to one year and six months' imprisonment in South Korea in May 2018 on charges of selling child sexual exploitation videos by the Sexual Protection of Children and Adolescents Act (Chid Act). The court explained that because the defendant is young, it reflects on the crime, and it is difficult to believe the crime to be his alone because it contains a lot of pornographic material uploaded by members of the site other than Son. However, there is an increasingly loud call for harsher punishment and public disclosure of child sexual exploitation users. On October 29, 2019, a Blue House National Petition was submitted, which said, “I want proper punishment for Son, who has operated a child pornography site, and for users.”

Soranet Affair

On October 30, 2019, Mr. Song, 40, the operator of ‘Soranet’, the nation's largest (one million members) pornography site, was sentenced to four years in prison at the Supreme Court. 'Soranet' is a site where various crimes have been committed. The site was operated for 13 years and hasshared more than 80,000 illegal pornographic films and 750 child and teen sexual exploitation videos. Song is now on trial for helping to share these videos on the site from 2003 until the site was closed in 2016. Song had to pay  1.4 billion won in fees and fines for criminal proceedings in the first trial. However, in the second trial, the penalty was canceled and the decision was confirmed. The court found that Song's bank account shows insufficient evicence to be considered as revenue from the operation of the ‘Soranet’. Additionally, “grooming” occurred with chatting with children and adolescents on the site, and even though this resulted in sexual exploitation, the public's anger increased even after Song was punished. Grooming refers to the psychological taming of children and adolescents by adults so they become acquainted and willing to have sexual relations with the adults.

As the level of punishment is low, crimes related to child sexual exploitation are increasing rapidly. According to the National Police Agency, the number of crimes related to the production and dissemination of child sexual exploitation videos has soared nearly double a year from 603 in 2017 to 1,172 in 2018. The number of arrests for these crimes also increased significantly from 543 to 1,006 during the same period, and the number of cases reported of possession increased sharply by 62.58% from 441 to 717. In addition, sites that deal with child sexual exploitation are more socially damaging because prostitution is being carried out on children and adolescents. In 2016, a survey on sex trafficking, published by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, examined the methods by which children and adolescents would be 'dating money with adults (including prostitution)'. The survey found that 74.8% were mobile chat apps (60.8%) and online chat sites (14%). In addition, according to the data of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, a growing number of people classified as `` pedophiles, '' which target young children as sexual objects, show that most of them possess child sexual exploitation videos. However, very few of them received hospital treatment. Even when receiving medical treatment, most patients do not voluntarily visit the hospital themselves, but they are forced to enter the hospital due to social controversy. In fact, the total number of crimes related to child sexual exploitation videos, the percentage of people treated with pedophilia still remains at 1%. It is gradually increasing every year from 0.69% (5 persons) in 2015 to 1.03% (13 persons) in 2016, 1.65% (10 persons) in 2017, and 1.79% (21 persons) in 2018 last year, but remains at a very low level.

Excessively low penalty

The courts are doing little more than slapping people on the wrists and putting them back out on the street again. That's obviously a generality. According to the current Child Act, ‘the production, import and export of pornography for children and adolescents shall be subject to sentences of up to life imprisonment or not less than imprisonment for five years.’ Also, when selling, renting, or distributing such video for profit, the convict shall be sentenced to 10 years in prison. Even if there is no commercial purpose, if the video is distributed and provided, the person will be sentenced to seven years' imprisonment or fined up to 50 million won. In the case of simple possession, the penalty level is greatly reduced to imprisonment of less than one year or a fine of less than 20 million won. The penalties for possession were enacted in 2008, which means there would have been no fines ten years ago. This is regarded as a fairly mild crime compared to the crime of invasion and theft, which has a lower limit on imprisonment for one to ten years. More seriously, according to the current law, criminal sites are not subject to the ‘sex offender community notification’ because the pornography site itself is not a “sexual violence crime” against children and adolescents. Even if a sex offender lives next door to us, we cannot receive the information about him. Besides, according to the ICMEC's Report on Online Grooming for Children, Korean legislation does not correctly define online grooming, and there are no related laws. In South Korea, most of the grooming of children and adolescents, who become victims of prostitution, is not regarded as sexual exploitation. Children and adolescents who have been identified as spontaneous offenders of prostitution are actually being detained for juvenile detention, which is practically legal punishment. In this situation, children who have been targeted for prostitution are reluctant to call the police. This information shows that the courts in Korea still have low awareness of child sexual exploitation. Even when penalizing related crimes, the courts are not approaching the victim's point of view, but rather focusing more on whether the person who makes and consumes these videos is for revenue or whether there is a full history of sex crimes.

In practice, the sentence is often determined by the judge's discretion. In the case of actual punishment, most of those who uploaded or sold child sexual exploitation videos were fined. According to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office data, as of 2016, 71% of Korean child adolescent sexual exploitation and distribution indictment  were suspended and not sent to trial. Even when handed over to trial, many were suspended and only about 6 percent were sentenced to imprisonment. In addition, among the nine judgments using the Dark Web during the 2018, seven out of eight cases of the lowest sentence were only  fines between 1.5 million and 3.5 million won. There were only two cases of imprisonment in the ‘Welcome to Video’ case, but all the suspects were sentenced to probation and released. The court even convicted people who had a record of downloading the video but removed it from his computer, saying there was no evidence.

, Again, as the demand for child sexual video increases, child sexual exploitation is bound to increase. In fact, 'Welcome to Video' users needed ‘some points' to download videos, which were earned only by uploading videos themselves, attracting new customers, or becoming paid members with Bitcoin. In this way, the market for child sexual exploitation has been revitalized because it is designed to supply new videos in order for new images to be consumed. The perception of children's sex as an object of consumption that is easily bought and sold in the market proves that Korea's sex sensitivity to children is very low. Actually, Lee Han-gi, director of the Digital Sexual Violence Out (DSO), said, "When the press uses the expression 'child pornography', the public recognizes it as pornography, and the perception that it is sexual violence and sexual exploitation is blurred." According to the ‘Big Kinds’, a news retrieval system operated by the Korea Press Foundation, there were 194 articles containing the words 'child pornography' and 'child pornography' from October 16-30, 2019. This continued keyword-driven exposure of the media has further strengthened the low perception of child gender in our society, which is already prevalent. In our society, children's adolescent sexual exploitation is considered as harmless hobby by simply treating it as a 'sex tape', a product that stimulates sexual desire. For example, the majority of men accused or punished in the 'dark web' case wrote a statement to reduce their sentences, many of them saying, "I just tried to watch the porn." This is not just a male perspective but a cultural one. Just a few months ago, ads that used childhood imagery as a sexual implication were controversial, and many people called it nonsense. On June 28, 2019, Baskin Robbins released a new ice cream ad featuring a girl model wearing colorful makeup and a sleeveless costume. The ad showed a close-up of a girl's lips biting an ice cream spoon, a child's lips slightly smeared with ice cream, or a side view with long hair curled around her neck. Immediately after its release, the advertisement was criticized for using directing techniques that emphasized pedophilia and sex commercialization. Baskin Robbins deleted the video and stopped TV commercials within a day after the commercial was released, but they were punished by the Korea Communications Commission. At the time, most public opinions varied about 'what is uncomfortable', and Baskin Robbins also expressed their shame by posting an apology saying, 'I'm not wrong, but there are many uncomfortable customers, so we apology.’. But Baskin Robbins's plain clothes and familiar expressions are only relevant from an adult's point of view. Exposing an image of a child through advertising media that everyone can see is what makes our society blunt to the sexual targeting of children.

In other countries

Unlike in Korea, producing and distributing videos to children is considered a serious crime abroad. Even if someone has a video, he can get more penalties than imprisonment. There are alo regulationsthat use the cooperation of citizens and companies to block the fundamental route of children's entry into the sexual exploitation market.

Let's look at the United States first.
In November 2017, the Circuit Court of Florida, USA, Daniel Bilka, 26 was sentenced to imprisonment , after being accused of downloading 454 child videos from the Internet. Although Bilka had no other crime record, the court calculated the sum of the sentences for each of Bilka's own children's videos and decided that life imprisonment was appropriate. Moreover, The United States varies from state to state, but child sexual exploitation videos can earn the offender sentences of at least 15 years' imprisonment, and sentences for  commercial distribution are at least 5 to 20 years. In fact, according to the latest US Department of Justice press release, Hiro Flores, who lives in Massachusetts, in the 'Welcome to Video' case, was sentenced to five years in prison with five years of parole eligibility on charges of receiving and possessing child sexual exploitation videos. Parole eligibility is a system that is additionally monitored like probation after serving a sentence. Another criminal in a similar  case, Richard Nikolai Grakowski, Texas, received a single video of child exploitation, but he was punished more severely than sentencing standards, including 70 months in prison and 10 years in Parole eligibility. In this way the US has a high standard of sentencing and a high level of punishment imposed by the courts. In addition, one person, who carries a child sexual exploitation video, is compelled to report his place of residence to the local police, just as with any other convicted sex offender. For example, in Louisiana, the United States, legislation has been enacted that requires sex offenders, including child sexually addicted image holders, to use their social media to indicate their offense, jurisdiction, address, and physical characteristics. Anyone who violates the bill is sentenced to two to ten years in prison or fined up to $1000.

 The UK also has a zero tolerance principle to imprisonment for possession of child sexual videos. Kyle Fox, who produced and distributed child video in “Welcome to Video,” was convicted of a sexual assault and sentenced to 22 years in prison. In the UK, although children do not actually appear, punishment is given to those who distribute or possess virtual pornography made using computer graphics or photo manipulation. They are subject to the same penalties as those who distribute and possess actual child sexual exploitation videos. The UK also wants to increase gender sensitivity by making clear the definition of `child sexual exploitation.' The UK replaced the terms "child prostitution" and "child pornography" with the term "child exploitation" in a revision of the Serious Crime Act in 2015. In addition, it pays attention to exposures through the courts and the media that deal with crimes related to child sexual exploitation. Most recently, in April 2017, a law was passed where groomers were sentenced to two years in prison and automatically registered as sex offenders. That is, they can be caught as criminals in the grooming stage before any sexual activity takes place. Adults 18 years of age or older can monitor minors for online or offline sexual activity, including social media, emails, and letters, to communicate with or induce them to communicate. With the revision of the law, about 80 Internet service providers promised to cooperate, making it easier to spot groomers.

Efforts to eradicate child sexual exploitation

Reflecting public opinion, the government pointed out that it is time for a change. On October 24, 2019, Kang Chang-il, along with Democrats, proposed an amendment to the Child Act. Representative Kang submitted a proposal that to those who simply possesse child sexual exploitation videos be imprisoned for not less than six months and as much as three years or fined less than 30 million won to raise the severity of the sentence. It will also be proposed that there be further increase in punishable offences, such as making, distributing and mediating sexual exploitation of children. Also, the term 'children's pornography' has been replaced by 'child sexual exploitation video'. In the press release, the US and UK clearly emphasized the meaning of 'child sexual exploitation' and 'child abuse' in press releases. On the other hand, the Korean investigative authorities have been criticized for not being aware of child sexual offenses by labeling them as 'child pornography'.

Next, as the Dark Web evolves with technological developments, the barriers to entry of the sexual exploitation market for children and adolescents will be lowered. According to Tormetrics, which provides dark web access statistics, there were 10,000 domestic dark web visitors recorded in early January 2019. Dark Web visitors have grown to 20,000 since July. As a result, you can see the so-called 'dark web crime manual' on various online communities, Twitter, Facebook, social networks (SNS), Youtube, etc. These manuals shows how to avoid investigations from the authorities. In fact, the people who possessed and shared a lot of child pornography in the 'WelCome to Video' case were sharing investigation information and countermeasures in internet cafes while waiting for punishment. In order to prevent this, on November 12, 2019, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defense, and the Vigilante joined forces to draw up a 'Working Agreement for Joint Response to Digital Sex Crimes.' According to this agreement, the Digital Sex Crime Victim Support Center was granted the right to use the 'tracking system such as illegal photographs' operated by the National Police Agency. Through this, the National Police Agency and the Center will be able to jointly assist victims by registering and classifying suspected illegal footage, requesting deletion and blocking. This authority will also be granted to the KAIT. This will allow digital sex crime images to be collected through dark website monitoring to be registered directly with the police system. The collected images will be delivered to the Korea Communications Commission in real time. This information will be sorted and stored in a "public database." It is hoped that if only public databases are provided, it will be easier to find sites distributing videos and to more effectively protect and support victims of child exploitation.

If a crime occurs on the dark web, which is difficult to track, the rights of the Korean police to investigate is limited. The Welcome to Video case also had limited domestic investigation rights and had to cooperate with foreign police authorities. Because of this, close collaboration with overseas police forces should continue. Recently, the National Police Agency's Cyber Safety Bureau held the 2018 International Symposium on Cybercrime of Response (ISCR) and the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) at the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno-gu, Seoul on October 31, 2019. ISCR and VGT were attended by representatives from law enforcement agencies from more than 50 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, Finland and Estonia. In addition, representatives from international organizations such as Interpol, Europol, Council of Europe, ICANN, and global IT companies such as Microsoft and Apple attended. The schedule was private and no details were available. However, there was a presentation on the topic of 'Evolving Cyber Threat: Investigating Cryptocurrency and Darknet' in relation to children and adolescents. The announcement was made by the US Department of Homeland Security, Chainalysis (IT Company that Developed a 'Reactor' Solution for Bitcoin Tracking), the Dutch Police, the Singapore Police, and the Finnish Police. Through these regular meetings, the company promised to create and share international databases such as the Dark Web, and showed willingness of advanced IT companies to cooperate in investigations. Since it is difficult to secure cybersecurity completely through efforts of only one country, such international cooperation must continue.

신지원  sjw46121@naver.com

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