South Korea is witnessing a significant social movement as over 50,000 citizens have signed a new petition asking the government to raise the legal age of consent from 16 to 19 years. This is because of recent controversy involving actor Kim Soo Hyun, who was accused of dating actress Sae Ron when she was a minor.
The petition, called the “Kim Soo Hyun Prevention Act” asks for stricter punishment for adults who have sexual relationships with minors. Currently the law allow fines and lighter sentencing in some cases and the petition demands to change and implement harsher penalties which includes at least 2 years in prison for molestation and 5 years for rape.
“The age limit for statutory rape … has allowed a pedophile, who seduced and deceived a promising female actress from childhood until her death, to evade the law,” a part of the petition read.
Kim Soo Hyun, who recently addressed allegations about his relationship with actress Sae Ron said “I’ll address the biggest concern—I did not date the deceased when she was a minor. We dated five years ago for about a year, long before Queen of Tears aired.”
Soo Hyun clearly denied dating Sae Ron when she was underage and said, “As the lead actor of Queen of Tears, I couldn’t confirm the relationship publicly because of its potential impact on the cast and crew.” Kim also denied accusations that his agency pressured Sae Ron over her debts and further added “Aside from the fact that we were both actors, we were simply an ordinary couple who broke up over time.”
