South Korea has recently been rocked by a digital sexual abuse and sexual exploitation case known as the “nth room” case. The name refers to the fact that the perpetrators opened multiple chat rooms on the secret messaging app Telegram to distribute sexually oriented videos among a reported number of 260,000 users.
The “nth room” perpetrators are accused of luring victims, including minors, into sending sexually explicit photos and videos. In some cases, this escalated to using blackmail to force victims into increasingly violent acts, including sexual assault, rape and gang rape, self-mutilation.
The main perpetrator of the case went by the name of “Baksa” (“Doctor”). At the time of his arrest, he was only known by his surname “Cho.” After more than two million people, including prominent celebrities, supported a petition to reveal his identity to the public, the police revealed his identity as Cho Ju Bin, a 25-year-old man. But of course he’s not the only one there.
And it’s not the only sex crime in the country. Two interesting videos reporting about the situation here:
The Korean police - after stalling for years and sending poor victims from one department to the other and telling them that they cannot report anything since they “willingly” sent their pictures and videos - now are obliged to take action. They announced that they would conduct a joint investigation with the Federal Bureau of investigation.
The police said they were making progress to prosecute the chat room users as well.
“We understand well that the clients of the platform were not only bystanders but also offenders of sexual misconduct. So that they may be prosecuted by law, we must investigate.”
(Ya think?)
Since the latest reporting, a nationwide petition has been launched requesting prosecution and punishment of all people involved in the Nth Room and it has so far earned more than 1,5 million signatures.
Here is the petition (in Korean) which you can sign as well as a video (narrated in English) about what the whole thing is.
