A local high court found a 46-year-old man not guilty of having sex with a runaway teenage girl, saying their liaison was neither forced nor in exchange for money.
The Busan District Court Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that acquitted the man, identified as Kim, of charges related to the violation of the law covering the protection of minors.
Kim bought food for the 16-year-old girl, who was wandering near Seoul Station, and allowed her to stay at his home in December 2006. He was indicted for having sex with her while the two lived together for about six months.
``The girl had already been homeless for about two years before meeting Kim, and he did not control her after offering his house as a shelter to her request. So we don’t acknowledge the prosecution’s claim that Kim made the minor (engage in sexual activity) away from her parents’ protection,’’ the court said.
Not directly related to this case, but I was reminded of a Gusts of Popular Feeling post from last November that looked at the high number---33%---of middle and high school girls in Busan who said they had been propositioned for sex, and the 6.5% of girls there who said they sold it.
7 comments:
Only 6.5% have sold it? more like only 6.5% have admitted to selling it.
To paraphrase Bill Maher: They have to sell their hootchie for Gucci.
I'd like to know a lot more about the methodology of the MoGE survey. The article doesn't mention anything about random sampling or anything along those lines.
While that doesn't mean it isn't a proper survey, there have been many cases cited of online voluntary participation (essentially online polls) that do not go through the rigors of making a random sampling but instead survey a self-selective group of those more willing to be open about some topic, which often is not a true representative sample.
When I have time, I'll try to go to the MoGE website and see if I can find it.
The age 13 consent, if true, is an artifact of earlier practices when most children did not go to school at all or beyond elementary school. Marriage was often early, especially when being married prevented being conscripted into wartime work and sent somewhere else.
A story like this and others like it may lead to critical mass to change the age of consent laws. And that may, in fact, be the agenda behind this story's prominence.
I agree that the age of consent in Korea is a throw-back and needs to be updated. That said, so long as the law stands, the man really did not commit a crime. Perhaps this case will mobilize the powers-that-be and changes will be enacted.
Is 13 the Korean age or is is really describing a 12 or 11 year old in most of the rest of the world?
How can this not be a crime if the child was really eleven or twelve, much less thirteen?
John from Taejŏn wrote:
Is 13 the Korean age or is is really describing a 12 or 11 year old in most of the rest of the world?
As far as I'm aware, "Korean age" is a social construct (and possibly a recent one), not a legal construct.
That means (if I'm correct), laws with ages listed are written according to "legal age" (i.e., with the person being zero years zero months and zero days as of midnight on the day of their birth).
If I'm not mistaken, legal age is often denoted with ~세, while in speaking Korean age is often denoted with ~살. That's not a hard-written rule, if it is right.
At any rate, if the 13 years rule is valid, I'm almost certain is 13 in legal age (what Westerners would call "Western age" and what Americans who think the US is the center of the known universe often refer to as "American age"... heh heh).
How can this not be a crime if the child was really eleven or twelve, much less thirteen?
I don't think it is at eleven or twelve. But then again, as you say, how can it not be a crime if the child is thirteen — or fourteen or even fifteen?
And here is a problem with Korea's modern legal tradition, something that catches up both Koreans and foreigners alike: There are things that are NOT illegal — like having consensual sex with a 13-year-old — that should be.
So instead of going through and updating the laws (this is an artifact of earlier times) to prevent this or properly prosecute it when it happens, the police or even prosecutors will sometimes deal with things ad hoc or impromptu according to how they feel the law should be instead of how it is.
If the police or prosecution could not make the case that he had received money (making it prostitution) then they had nothing on him, but they went ahead anyway.
Anyway, some members of the press, I'm fairly certain, focused on this because they want to build public sentiment for a change. Yeah, that's manipulative, but at the same time the public can reject what is being sold them. But if some Assembly members try to go ahead and get age of consent raised, I'd be willing to bet most of the public would support it.
And here is a problem with Korea's modern legal tradition, something that catches up both Koreans and foreigners alike: There are things that are NOT illegal — like having consensual sex with a 13-year-old — that should be.
I know you don't want to think about this, but try to imagine it anyway.
Foreign Teacher (with female student): You are really pretty.
Female student: Thank you!
FT: Can I touch you?
FS: Sure!
Consensual, but be honest, don't you think that if word got out about that, the foreign teacher would not see his ass in jail faster than you could say Gucci?
The thing is, Koreans think emotionally. The Korean guy who had sex with the runaway was just good at playing the sympathy of the court. A foreign teacher however? He will be seen as "the dirty, sex perverted foreigner".
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