Life Is Hard For South Korea's Internet Porn Cops
Law enforcement in South Korea is having a hard time battling online pornography.
Even though pornography is illegal in South Korea, it is very prevalenet in the nation.
So the government consistently relies on the help of a group of nearly 800 volunteers called the "Nuri Cops."
This group, which includes students, housewives, IT workers, and housewives, helps the government identify sites that should be blocked due to obscene material.
"It's like shoveling snow in a blizzard," Nuri Cop Moon Tae-Hwa told Hyung-Jin Kim of The Huffington Post.
South Korea President Lee Myung-bak said in September that watching porn online can lead to sex crimes. That's why the nation is trying hard to crack down on offenders.
South Korean authorities arresested more than 6,400 people for making, selling, and posting pornography online in a six-month period this year, Kim reports .
Reported sex crimes in South Korea have also increased in the last decade. But researchers say it's probably because victims are more willing to report abuse than they have been in the past.
More recently, police shut down 37 websites, and put another 134 sites under investigation for porn-related activity.
But this doesn't happen easily. As Kim writes, the Nuri Cops realize they are fighting an increasingly difficult battle.
Porn enthusiasts have accused Nuri Cops of being enemies of South Korean men. One Nuri Cop, Bae Young Ho, said that he even found about 5,000 messages attacking him online.
But Young Ho, along with other pornography opponents, plan to keep moving forward. That's because they feel that what they're doing is important for society, given the number of recent sex crimes in the nation.
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