Yahoo – AFP, Jung Ha-Won, October 18, 2016
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| A member of Seoul's 'hidden camera-hunting' squad moves a hand-held detector around the toilet seat of a women's bathroom stall in search of a 'secret camera' (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je) |
Walking
into an empty women's bathroom stall, Park Kwang-Mi waves a hand-held detector
around the toilet seat, paper roll holder, doorknob and even the ventilation
grill on the ceiling.
"It's
my job to make sure there's no camera to film women while they relieve
themselves," the 49-year-old said after similarly inspecting dozens of
public toilet stalls at a museum in Seoul.
"It's weird
that there are people who want to see something like that ... but this is
necessary to help women feel safe," she told AFP.
A member of
Seoul city's all-female "hidden camera-hunting" squad, Park is at the
forefront of a battle against "molka", or "secret camera"
porn.
South Korea
takes pride in its tech prowess, from ultra-fast broadband to cutting-edge
smartphones. Around 90 percent of its 50 million people possess smartphones --
the highest rate in the world.
But it's a
culture that has also given rise to an army of tech-savvy peeping Toms in a
still male-dominated country with a poor record on women's rights.
Many use
special smartphone apps to film up women's skirts as they ride subway
escalators or sit at desks, and spy cameras to gather footage from changing
rooms and toilet stalls.
The images
are then often shared to numerous molka speciality sites on the Internet.
Such
practises have become so rampant that all manufacturers of smartphones sold in
South Korea are required to ensure the cameras on their devices make a loud
shutter sound when taking photos.
 |
Many of
South Korea's tech-savvy peeping Toms use spy cameras to
gather footage from
changing rooms and toilet stalls (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je)
|
'Molka'
crimes
Molka
crimes are daily news, and perpetrators cover a broad social range.
A pastor at
a Seoul mega-church with 100,000 members was caught filming up a woman's skirt
on an escalator. His smartphone was packed with similar images of other women.
A
31-year-old obstetrician was jailed for secretly filming female patients and
nurses in a changing room and sharing some of the images on the Internet.
And the
head coach of South Korea's national swimming team resigned last month after
two male swimmers were found to have installed a hidden camera in the locker
room of their women teammates.
According
to police data, the number of molka crimes jumped more than six-fold from about
1,110 in 2010 to more than 6,600 in 2014.
While some
offenders use smartphones, others employ spy-style gadgets, including ballpoint
pens, glasses or wrist watches equipped with micro lenses, said Hyun Heung-Ho,
a detective attached to Seoul police's metro squad.
The squad
was established in 1987 to fight subway crime like pickpockets, but now its
main focus is on tackling various kinds of sexual harassment, including molka
crimes.
"It's
tough because the technology they use advances so fast, like special apps to
mute camera sound or to show something else on the display while the camera is
rolling," Hyun told AFP.
The
majority of men nabbed by the squad are in their 20s or 30s -- and include many
college-educated, white-collar workers.
"They
generally cry and beg to be let off, saying they were 'simply curious',"
Hyun said.
High-tech
gadgets
Convicted
offenders face a fine of up to 10 million won ($9,100) or a maximum jail term
of five years.
To help
with their crackdown, police have offered cash rewards to those reporting molka
crimes and the Seoul city council has hired dozens of women like Park to scour
bathrooms and other spaces for hidden cameras.
Office
worker Lee Hae-Kyung said she, like many of her friends, tried to avoid toilets
in public spaces like subway stations.
"If I
urgently need to use a public toilet, I always inspect the doorknob or the
flush handle," the 38-year-old told AFP.
"It's
scary because many molka are apparently filmed by normal people like office
workers ... so who knows? An ordinary-looking guy standing next to you in the
subway may be filming up your skirt," she said.
Whenever a
man stands behind Lee on an escalator, she slightly turns her body to face him
or look him in the eye -- a move detective Hyun says can act as a strong
deterrent.
 |
The main
focus of Seoul's 'hidden camera-hunting' squad nowdays is on tackling
various
kinds of sexual harassment, including 'molka' crimes (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je)
|
Gender
inequality
According
to Lee Na-Young, a sociology professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, the only
real solution is a societal one.
Lee said
"upskirt videos" had been avidly consumed in South Korea and Japan
for decades.
"Both
are deeply conservative nations where open discussion of sex is quite taboo,
people feel sexually oppressed and women are relentlessly objectified and
discriminated against," she said.
South Korea
-- Asia's fourth-largest economy -- has long been ranked bottom for women's
rights among OECD member nations.
Average pay
for South Korean women is 63.3 percent that of men -- the lowest in the OECD --
and women account for 11 percent of managerial positions and 2.1 percent of
corporate boards -- far lower than the OECD average of 31 percent and 19
percent.
In this
environment, some men view women as nothing more than sexual objects, Lee said,
describing the molka trend as a "wrong marriage between fast-evolving
technology and slow-evolving patriarchal culture."
"The
molka problem won't be solved unless we deal with this bigger social problem
through education at home and at school," she said.
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