The defense ministry plans to toughen punishment for sexual assaults on military bases and strengthen preventive education as part of efforts to root out abuses among service personnel and to tighten discipline, officials said Wednesday.
“We will introduce the so-called one-strike-out policy to kick sexual offenders out of the military and deprive them of benefits reserved for the retired,” a ministry official said.
“Those who connive the crimes will also face additional punishment,” he said, adding that the plan will “toughen the screening system to prevent sexual offenders from joining the military for active duty from the outset.”
They are part of the envisioned comprehensive measures the ministry plans to unveil at the end of this month after having been under fire for a series of sex crimes among servicemembers that revealed the military’s mismanagement and lax discipline.
In January, an incumbent Army colonel was arrested on charges of raping a female subordinate multiple times. In October, a two-star general in charge of an Army division in the Seoul metropolitan area was arrested on charges of sexually harassing a female subordinate at his office five times.
In order to better prevent such incidents, the ministry plans to establish a new team under the Army, Air Force and Navy headquarters to be in charge of launching anti-sex crime campaigns and to increase the number of sex education sessions for servicemembers from one to four per year.
To help female victims, more female investigators will be dispatched to military police units, another official said, adding that the victims will be allowed to take more days off for treatment.
“We will continue efforts to eliminate the crimes from the bases by pushing for our zero-tolerance principle in a consistent manner,” he noted. (Yonhap)
