At a Cabinet meeting recently, the Ministry of Justice said it would instruct
the prosecution to stiffen punishment on sex offenders against children or
young students through revisions of the law.
The move comes after a man sexually abused and killed 10-year-old Lee Hye-jin
and eight-year-old Woo Ye-seul in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, last December, and
another man violently attempted to kidnap a 10-year-old schoolgirl in Ilsan,
north of Seoul, recently.
Police requested an arrest warrant for the man in his 40s who attempted to
kidnap the schoolgirl.
"Such criminals who commit sexual assaults and murder after kidnapping children
should be subject to stiff penalties such as life imprisonment or capital
punishment," Prime Minister Han Seung-soo said after presiding over the weekly
Cabinet meeting.
"Crimes against children cannot be tolerated at all," Han said. "Ministries
related to public security should map out measures against such inhumane
crimes."
The government also said the minimum penalty for sex offenses against children
will be adjusted upward to seven years, in a bid to block suspended sentences.
The Justice Ministry plans to create a DNA database as part of efforts to
monitor sex offenders.
It will push for legislation to collect and manage genetic information from
inmates or suspects to use for investigations or trials involving sex crimes.
The government measure comes amid increasing sexual violence in the country,
particularly against children.
Despite the arrest of the suspected child kidnapper, citizens remain extremely
anxious about the safety of their offspring and have called for stronger
measures to prevent such crimes.
Before relying on police, parents are stepping up efforts to defend their
children on their own. State-of-the-art monitoring devices are selling well,
according to industry sources.
Kidnapping and sexual assaults on children are also on the rise. The number of
sexual assaults on children aged under 13 rose to 1,081 cases in 2007 from 980
the previous year, according to police.
A majority of netizens are criticizing human rights organizations, which
cautioned about the possibility of the contemplated DNA database violating
human rights.
"Human rights cannot be applied to beast-like human-beings," a netizen said.
