(Source: Bridget Colla; CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Ministry for Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs can certainly be misguided in the “protection” it provides to youngsters sometimes (see #2 here). But given Korean television’s propensity for highlighting dull, vacuous company-endorsed public “campaigns” in commercial breaks, then it deserves kudos for its simple but effective message in this one:

For those of you that are interested, here is the full text seen in the book (repeated by the voice over):

허루평균 2.7 명 아동성폭력 피해

On average, everyday 2.7 children suffer from sexual abuse.

성폭력 피해 아동 편균 연령 9.4세

The average age of victims is 9.4

2007년 아동 성폭력 1,081건 발생

In 2007, there were 1,081 cases of sexual abuse against children

아동 성폭력 ,  당신의 관심만이 사전에 막을 수 있습니다

Only your concern can prevent this

모든아이가 내아이입니다

All children are my children(?)

보건복지가족부

Ministry for Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs

And for further reading I highly recommend this semi-introduction to the topic by Gord Sellar, prompted by his witnessing a mother pouring water over her son’s head to punish him for not liking his food. Alternatively, for more statistics and analysis, then I recommend most of the posts in the “youth” section of Gusts of Popular Feeling here, and Brian in Jeollanam-do has also written a lot about specific cases.

And last but not least, there is also the English section of the Ministry’s website itself, which is actually not all that bad.