Last year, 35,725 items containing sexual content featuring children and teens were dislodged from the web, up 2.5 percent from the preceding year. (Image courtesy of Pexels/CCL)
SEOUL, Apr. 2 (Korea Bizwire) –Nearly 250,000 illegal sexual videos were removed from the web last year, a 15 percent increase from the year before, data showed Tuesday.
A total of 8,983 victims received help from the support center for online sexual abuse victims, up 12.6 percent year-on-year, according to a report by the Advocacy Center for Online Sexual Abuse Victims affiliated with an institute under the gender ministry.
The center, founded in 2018, is dedicated to monitoring and removing illegal sexual content online, and supporting victims by linking them to investigative agencies and legal and medical assistance.
Last year, the center deleted 245,602 illegal sexual videos online, an increase of 14.9 percent from the 213,602 removed in 2022.
Most of the victims, or 74.2 percent of those who received help, were female, while 25.8 percent were male. Nearly 75 percent of the victims who sought help were in their 10s and 20s.
The perpetrators were mostly people the victims have met only once, for instance through online chat, accounting for 37.8 percent of the total, followed by unidentified offenders recording 22.9 percent and strangers 20.8 percent.
Most of the illegal sexual content was uploaded to porn sites, marking 114,672 cases, or 46.7 percent, followed by 29.9 percent found on search engines and 14.5 percent on social media.
A gender ministry official pointed to the preemptive inspection of illegal sexual content targeting children or teens, along with reinforced cooperation from investigative agencies, as reasons for the leap in the amount of removed content.
Last year, 35,725 items containing sexual content featuring children and teens were dislodged from the web, up 2.5 percent from the preceding year.
The gender ministry plans to cooperate with other ministries to overhaul relevant policies to prevent second offenses against the victims from personal information leaks.
It will also cooperate with overseas agencies supporting victims of online sexual abuse to counter content on overseas porn sites.
(Yonhap)
