Recently, in our society many sexual assaults have occurred. According to SBS News, sexual assault occurs 35 times a day on average, so sexual assault has become a big problem. Many assaults are done by neighbors, so people worry. The targets of sexual assault are from elementary school students to pregnant women. Furthermore, child sexual assault is serious. Our society is not a safe society.

Compared with other countries, the punishment in Korea for sexual assault is too light. For example, in 2010, Jo Du-sun, who is a sexual assault criminal and raped an elementary student, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. The girl suffered long-term physical damage and mental anguish. In Korea, the court sometimes gives sexual assault criminals probation.

Compared with Korea’s weak punishment for sexual assault, other countries impose a heavy punishment. In the United Kingdom, criminals who rape a victim that is under 16 are sentenced to up to 14 years’ imprisonment. The sentence is different, depending on the type of sexual assault. In France, in the case of rape, a criminal who rapes a girl under the age of fifteen can be sentenced to 15 to 20 years’ imprisonment. Also, the court in China put a sexual assault criminal who for decades raped many women to death. The court in Australia gave a criminal who raped a 6 year old girl 77 years’ imprisonment.

Though these other countries impose a heavy punishment for sexual assault, the court in Korea imposes from 10 years’ to life imprisonment. However, most criminals are sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. In addition, our society doesn’t have preventive measures against the reoccurrence of sexual assault. In a young girl’s sexual assault and murder in Tongyeong, the criminal had 12 previous convictions and committed a crime again because of improper surveillance from police. Unlike Korea, Switzerland has a constitutional amendment that makes a life sentence mandatory for sexual criminals classified as “extremely dangerous.” Korea has to prevent second crimes.

In 2009, Korea amended a law dealing with child sex offenders. The possession of child pornography is punished with fines, but the law isn’t yet strongly enforced. However, in France, possession of child pornography is punished by 2 years’ imprisonment and a fine. In England, the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) regularly investigates child pornography on the Internet. Like this, Korea also strongly has to investigate and regulate child pornography.

Now the government has to plan preventive measures. First, to the victims of sexual assault, economic assistance for mental treatment and social support has to be provided. Second, the government has to punish child pornography. The current law punishes production, circulation, and possession of child pornography, but in reality the punishment for possession of child pornography is weak. Therefore, the government has to enforce strong punishment. Third, 9000 sexual assault criminals who haven’t been caught during the last 5 years still are striding down the street. Therefore, our government must catch these criminals to prevent other crimes. The government has to implement systems and make society safe.