Police have denied accusations that they fail to take women’s complaints seriously, citing the difficulty of verifying allegations based on footage that often does not show the victim’s face. In response to the protest in June, the South Korean government said it would take preventative measures, including checks on tens of thousands of public toilets and inspections of public buildings. “The police believed everything he said,” said Han, who quit the firm while the vice-president, who still works for the company, was fined just 500,000 won (£340). The vice-president, a colleague of five years, told them he was in love with her and complained that he was no longer intimate with his heavily pregnant wife. Han complained to the police, who initially tried to dismiss her concerns. What happened next was typical of the response experienced by South Korean women who attempt to take legal action. A sceptical Han persevered, and uncovered hundreds of video clips and photographs he had kept of her and other women. She confronted the suspect, who admitted he had installed the device but denied watching any of the footage as the camera had only been switched on the previous day. Han, whose name has been changed at her request, said she “froze in terror” when she realised she had been secretly filmed. Photograph: Jean Chung/Getty Images ‘The police believed everything he said’ South Korean women protest against gender inequality and sexual harassment in the workplace. The filming is not confined to public toilets: websites carrying spycam footage show women being filmed without their knowledge having sex, relaxing at home and walking along the street. South Korea’s ubiquitous smartphones and miniature spycams aside, offenders can turn to an array of seemingly everyday items – including pens, watches and shoes – equipped with spycams. “The problem is aggravated by the uncooperative attitude of the police and the light penalties given out by the courts.” “A deep-seated sexism lies behind the incredibly unbalanced numbers between men and women regarding this crime,” one of the organisers, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian. The speed of her arrest led to accusations from an anonymous collective that organised the Right to be Uncomfortable march in June that a double standard was at work when the victims were men. The protest was called after a woman was quickly arrested and paraded in front of the media – albeit wearing a mask – after she was found to have secretly filmed a nude male model during a university drawing class and posted the video online. And last month, an estimated 22,000 women took to the streets of Seoul in what local media reported as the biggest women’s rights demonstration in South Korea’s history. More than 400,000 people recently signed a petition calling on the presidential Blue House to force police to properly investigate all molka allegations. Many offenders are ordered to pay modest fines and in most cases the crime goes unpunished. Offenders face a fine of up to 10m won (£6,800) or a maximum prison sentence of up to five years, but campaigners say few feel the full force of the law. The country’s president, Moon Jae-in, recently acknowledged that illegal spycam images had become “a part of daily life” and called for tougher penalties for perpetrators. Of the 16,201 people arrested between 20 for making illegal recordings, 98% were men 84% of the 26,000 recorded victims over that period were women. According to police, the number of molka arrests soared from 1,110 in 2010 to more than 6,600 in 2014, although the real number of cases is thought to be many times higher.
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