Numerous online posts have been found offering to buy alcohol and tobacco for minors in exchange for sexual acts and other favors. The government said it will step up its response by asking platforms to delete the posts and referring cases to police for investigation.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said on the 30th that it has formed a working-level task force on monitoring and cracking down on environments harmful to youth, together with the Korea Media and Communications Commission, the Korean National Police Agency and the Korea Communications Standards Commission. The task force aims to build a cross-government response system covering everything from monitoring harmful environments for young people to deletion, enforcement and regulatory improvements. Following a kickoff meeting on Aug. 26, director-level officials from each agency will hold regular meetings every two months.
The first meeting discussed measures against proxy purchases of alcohol, tobacco and other substances harmful to minors. An analysis of 4,840 online posts related to proxy purchases from March through August this year found that tobacco accounted for 84.8% and alcohol for 13.3%, with the two categories making up 98.1% of the total.
About 700 accounts among them repeatedly uploaded such posts or were suspected of operating as a business. Another 141 posts demanded physical contact, sexual acts, or items such as underwear and stockings in return for the purchases.
The task force decided to select 56 accounts deemed most dangerous for investigation, given the high risk of additional crimes during the actual handover of the goods. It also plans to draw up measures to prevent recurrence, including deleting posts, blocking accounts and setting banned keywords related to proxy purchases.
"Environments harmful to youth have recently been evolving into more complex and varied forms, with online and offline elements converging," said Yoon Se-jin, director general for youth policy at the ministry. "Relevant agencies will cooperate closely to detect risk factors early and prepare effective countermeasures."
