90 Percent of Violent Crime Victims Are Women

Reported crimes targeting women have increased exponentially over the last couple of decades. According to the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, the proportion of women among victims of violent crimes rose from 72 percent in 1995 to a staggering 90 percent in 2013.

Over the same period, the number of female victims also surged almost five-fold from 5,476 to 24,992. Based on 2013 figures, every day 68 women fall victim to violent criminals.

Grisly reports abound. One woman in her 30s who was found dead recently in the trunk of a car had never met her assailant before. Kim Il-gon (48) roamed the underground parking lots of supermarkets in broad daylight in search of prey.

He threatened the woman with a knife as she was getting into her car and kidnapped her in her own vehicle. The supermarket was in a heavily populated area.

Nine out of 10 violent murders, robberies, abductions and other violent crimes target women. Experts blame a lack of systemic protection of women -- criminals instinctively target victims who are more vulnerable, which makes women more appealing.

Park Hyung-min at the Korea Institute of Criminology said, "If you ask perpetrators of robberies how they chose their victims, a lot of them say they made their decision based on how weak the victims appeared, rather than how much money they seemed to carry".

Reported rape cases rose from 3,901 incidents in 1995 to 23,532 in 2013, up more than six times. But criminologists believe formal arrests for rape probably account for only 10 percent of total rapes.

Criminologist Yeom Geon-ryong said, "In the U.S. rapists face tough sentences of more than 50 years behind bars, while China executes people who rape juveniles". Yeom added, "We need to introduce tougher penalties on rapists".