`16 pct. of child sex offenders viewed porn before crimes`

A man was watching a computer monitor at a dark PC café. On his screen was a man having sex with an underage girl.

The man at the cafe said he often watched such child pornography from Japan. He thought to himself, “I also want to have sex with a young girl.”

This was the account of Goh Jong-seok, who last year broke into a home in Naju, South Jeolla Province, and kidnapped a 7-year-old girl in a blanket while she was asleep.

Also addicted to child pornography was Kim Jeom-deok, who got a life sentence for kidnapping, raping and killing a 10-year-old girl in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, and Kim Soo-cheol, who got the same punishment for entering an elementary school, kidnapping and raping an 8-year-old girl.

A government study found a correlation between child pornography and sexual violence against children. The Justice Ministry surveyed 87 child sex offenders, 201 sex offenders, and 170 ordinary people and announced the results.

In the survey, 16 percent of child sex offenders said they had watched child pornography up to seven days before committing their crimes. The ratio of criminals viewing child pornography more than twice just before committing crimes was more than double among child sex offenders (13.7 percent) as that of regular sex offenders (5 percent).

Sex offenders were also found to widely use PC cafes and fee-based adult porn sites to view child pornography, with child sex offenders six times more likely and regular sex offenders four times more likely to do so than ordinary people.

Since last year, the National Police Agency has been cracking down on mere possession of child pornography, as well as creation and distribution.

yena@donga.com