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| A screenshot from a website of a company selling sex dolls / Yonhap |
By Jun Ji-hye
Police began to crack down on any illegal acts committed by owners of sex doll experience shops or cafes, Monday, amid growing concerns from many parents that such facilities near schools will have a bad influence on their children.
The National Police Agency said that police officers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province will carry out the crackdown jointly with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, as well as local governments, until the end of next month.
Their crackdown will focus on any illegalities involving those shops' online and offline ads.
The crackdown comes as sex doll experience shops have become a controversial issue here, with objectors referring to the businesses as a "new form of sex trafficking."
In particular, many parents have been complaining about the opening of such establishments near schools.
"Since the Supreme Court ruled in June 2019 that sex dolls could be imported into Korea, the number of sex doll experience shops and cafes has increased here," an official from the National Police Agency said. "Though running those shops is not illegal itself, we will check if owners of the shops have committed any illegal acts, in a bid to prevent children from having distorted perspectives of sex."
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| A life-size sex doll is seen at the National Assembly during an Assembly inspection into government organizations in this Oct. 18, 2019 file photo. Korea Times photo by Oh Dae-geun |
Since the ruling, the number of sex doll experience shops has increased, and the rapid increase was possible as the business is categorized as a "free business" type here. Thus, it does not require approval from local governments to open.
Police said that there have been no particular standards to regulate new businesses related to sex dolls, apart from the Educational Environment Protection Act, which bans facilities that can adversely affect students, such as adult entertainment establishments and hotels, from opening within a 200-meter radius of schools.
In a bid to address the lack of applicable laws, the police and the family ministry have prepared several legal grounds for their crackdown, including the Adolescents Protection Act, which bans sex doll experience shops from displaying banner ads that show a shop's phone number, address or rough map.
Police also said that if the shops do not state "content harmful to juveniles" in their online ads, or do not take measures to restrict juveniles' access to such ads, they will be in violation of the Information Communications Network Act.
