Is it safe for young girls?

As safe as I, and everyone I talk to, feels here, there are some serious problems for young girls.

Earlier in the month, there was a story about child rape that reported it was very high and increasing. A quote about the reluctance to report it made it even more disturbing: “Given this reluctance, the actual number of child sex crimes in Korea could be far higher than the number officially reported,” 

There was another story today  that said sexual crimes in general are vastly under reported here.  They found that the true numbers are 8 times as high as the official numbers indicate because "victims were deterred by society's negative view of sex crimes and their sense of shame."

I talked to a small group of kids about this awhile back and one girl said she did not know anyone affected by it, another told me a friend of her's was abducted and someone tried to abduct her.  Another girl said that two different people tried to abduct her. Scary.

Penalties for child rape have been really weak until recently. Last year there was an 8 year old girl, Na-young, was raped, tortured and nearly killed by a guy who had two previous convictions.He got a 12 year term. The public went wild.  Law makers are responding and the laws are being toughened.

It is good that the laws are being changed, but until people feel comfortable reporting the crimes it seems a bit irrelevant.  Hopefully, there will be more programs in schools to deal with this.