The Munhwa Ilbo reports that just 1 in 9 (the reporter mistakenly writes 1 in 8) sexual assaults in Korea are reported to police.

The number of women in our country who have suffered a sexual assault is actually eight times the number reported, a study has found. Furthermore, not all assault or burglaries are reported either, the study found.

At the first annual crime research conference (전국범죄피해조사 학술대회), held by the Korean Institute of Criminology (한국형사정책연구원), the dissertation, titled 범죄 피해율과 공식범죄 발생률 간의 비교분석, was presented by researcher Hwang Ji-tae. Hwang said on the 25th that, “for every 100,000 women in 2008 there were 467.7 victimized by sexual assault or molestation, eight times the 58.3 who went to authorities.”

This means there are many crimes which occurred but do not appear in official statistics. These are crimes that were not reported to investigative authorities such as the police. Accordingly, the study found that just one in eight sexually assaulted women go to the police, while the rest are not reflected in the official statistics.

It has been the general understanding that many more sexual assaults occur than are reported, but this study is the first to produce relatively concrete figures.

The study compared official statistics with the results of the researcher’s own survey. The dissertation arrived at the figure of 467.7 women per 10,000 by surveying a sample of 5,559 women and finding that 26 had been sexually assaulted.

Also, 36 had suffered a forcible rape going beyond sexual molestation, 9.5 times the official figure of 3.8.

Researcher Hwang said, “.the low reporting rate for sexual assaults is due to the poor reaction society has to the crimes as well as the sense of shame felt by the victims… various policies that could significantly raise the reporting rate are needed.”