Seoul wins UN Public Service Award for combatting digital sex crimes

SONGDO, Incheon -- The Seoul Metropolitan Government won a UN Public Service Award for its comprehensive policies combatting digital sex crimes at the UN Public Service Forum held in Songdo, Incheon, Wednesday.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, along with Interior Minister Lee Sang-min and UN Under Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua and 1,000 representatives from 100 different countries, attended Wednesday’s event.

The UN Public Service Awards, first launched in 2003, are given biennially from 2022 to public institutions that promote effectiveness, transparency and inclusiveness to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This year, the awards were presented in three categories: innovation in public institutions, gender-responsive public services and tackling climate change.

During this year’s forum, the Seoul Metropolitan Government was the sole winner in the gender-responsive public services category for its set of policies in combatting digital sex crimes.

Of the 15 countries and public organizations that won or received an honorable mention for the awards this year, the city government was also the only winner in South Korea.

Sao Paulo City Hall of Brazil won the award for innovations in the public institutions category in recognition of its efforts in helping deaf people access public services. Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry also won the award for tackling climate change by providing data and information on climate vulnerability.

The city government’s comprehensive response plan for digital sex crimes consists of four stages: early prevention, intervention, victim support and recurrence prevention. It conducts regular early education programs for children and adolescents about digital sex crimes to prevent the future generation from being involved while also providing counseling programs for perpetrators to prevent similar crimes from recurring.

For the victims, the city government’s Seoul Digital Sex Crime Victim Support Center offers help with reporting the crime to the police and provides legal assistance, according to the office. It also provides immediate counseling assistance through phone calls while also providing medical support and helps victims delete sexually exploitative videos off the internet via its artificial intelligence surveillance technology, which identifies and deletes sexual exploitative content off the internet, it added.

The city government first launched the initiative in response to the rise in digital sex crimes such as the Nth Room case, which became publicly known in March 2020, in which hundreds of women and girls were coerced into taking part in making sexually exploitative photos and videos that were sold to at least 60,000 people.

Through its comprehensive policy, the city government provided some 34,000 cases of assistance to the victims and deleted some 572,000 sexually exploitative videos from the internet.

According to the city government’s press release, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs -- the organizer behind the UN Public Service Awards -- stated that the city was rewarded for its comprehensive set of policies to combat digital sex crimes, which “will play an important role in realizing the SDGs” and will “inspire other countries to develop and implement related policies.”

“It’s an honor to be recognized for the city government’s administrative power, but it means much more that we were awarded for our policies that use digital technology to help victims in unjust situations,” said Mayor Oh upon receiving the award. “The Seoul Metropolitan Government will continue to strive to create good policies that can become outstanding policy examples.”

Meanwhile, the Seoul city government was previously awarded an UN Public Service Award in 2019 for promoting women’s rights and health by providing free menstrual products at public facilities. Wednesday’s award marks the second time in five years that the city government received the award.