Currently in South Korea, numerous women are suffering from sexual exploitation and violence due to a series of atrocious digital sex crimes called the “Nth Room” (N번방). The number of perpetrators has exceeded 260,000. This is what happened so far.
At first, a criminal using the nickname “박사” (Baksa; means Doctor in Korean) sent Twitter messages to the victims saying, “Your private pictures might be exposed on the internet, so please check this website to see if it is really you”. The website was actually a decoy - once the victims clicked the website, a fake Twitter popped up. Victims thinking that it was the real Twitter typed their username and password, which were immediately shared with the criminals. The shared username and password enabled the criminals to illegally gather more personal information like telephone number, home addresses, and family.
With the personal information held in the criminal’s hands, the criminals threatened the victims that unless they act as “slaves” for a week, their personal information would be exposed to the world.
Victims complied with this demand, fearing the exposure of their personal information. The criminals then ordered the victims to send nude photographs of themselves. The victims did so in hopes that this dreadful situation will stop in a week.
However, the criminals didn’t stop even after a week passed. The criminals threatened the victims even more that they will spread their nude photographs to their family and friends if they don’t perform and record the inhumanely violent activities they demand.
The activities included the following: writing “slave” with a knife on the skin, putting in a pair of scissors inside the vagina, cutting out the nipples, and even getting raped by assigned people. The footages of the victims performing such activities are shared at Telegram chatrooms, otherwise called the “Nth Room”.
When the footages were collected, “박사" (Baksa) sold the tickets that allow people to enter the Telegram chatrooms where footages of sexual exploitation and violence are shared. The rooms were named 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on, according to the price of the tickets and the content shared inside. The cost of the tickets varied, and some were as expensive as 1,500 dollars. More than eighty thousand people have joined the chatrooms. Footages of women getting sexually exploited were bought and sold like mere products in the "Nth Room".
Twitter was not the only way women become victims. Some men deliberately shared the personal information of their girlfriends to the criminals to turn them into “slaves” at the “Nth Room”. Some criminals took women’s personal information by lying that it is a mandatory process in a job interview and turned them into “slaves” as well.
The age of the victims is diverse; eleven is the youngest victim identified so far. Most of the victims are in their late teens to early twenties. According to a member in the “Nth Room” chatroom, two women become new “slaves” every day.
Would reporting to the police work? A man who went inside one of the “Nth Room” chatrooms reported this crime to the Korean police as he was astonished by the brutality. The report was first handed to the Cyber Crime Investigation Unit, but was passed to the Women and Adolescent Crime Investigation Unit, and then to the Violence Investigation Unit, then back to the Cyber Crime Investigation Unit. The investigation was never properly done. The man who originally reported the crime started to contribute to the growth of the “Nth Room” by re-selling footages as he found out that the lack of investigation created a safe environment for the criminals.
The atrocity of the criminals didn’t stop here. When a middle schooler girl found out that her younger sister who goes to elementary school was suffering from sexual exploitation at the “Nth Room”, she begged to the criminals to stop harming her sister. The criminals afterward raped the middle schooler girl inside a car and spread the rape footage.
There was also a case where the criminals threatened a girl to make her mother also become a “slave” in the “Nth Room”. Furthermore, the criminals even forced a victim to have sex with her own brother.
Recently on February 17, a Korean broadcasting company called SBS examined on the "Nth Room" and aired their findings through an investigative journalism program called “Curious Stories Y” (궁금한 이야기 Y). A criminal threatened the broadcasting company that if they don’t stop airing the program, they are going to force a woman who is a “slave” at the "Nth Room" to kill herself.
To avoid the investigation of the Korean police, the criminals are using Telegram, which has its servers located in foreign lands. Telegram is not an app made in Korea, so it is hard to be investigated by the Korean Police force alone. In addition, the punishment given to criminals who obtain child pornography is too light in South Korea; many criminals only get a short sentence of one year or get released with a suspended sentence.
There are criminals who are neither captured nor punished. Hence, as a Korean citizen, I would like to call for the FBI’s investigation of this atrocious digital crime. I would also like to ask for human rights organizations and press agencies around the world to pay attention to this serious crime that infringes human rights by raising voices and writing articles. Thank you so much for reading my letter.
Here are some links that can help you:
https://youtu.be/dI_OJITLuxU - Translations of what is going on in the “Nth Room”
http://cyber-lion.com/?fbclid=IwAR1BNOxlosolUpYi7ihi3RlBA-aV-W2NnP-Smwjenmy05fcWqtUCgYMQIcc - The website of Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center, which is an organization working for the eradication of this crime
https://www.facebook.com/kcsvrc/ The Facebook page of Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center
https://programs.sbs.co.kr/culture/cube - Homepage of “Curious Story Y”
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