A team of women sweep for hidden toilet cameras in South Korea

BY TRACY CLARK-FLORY

South Korea has a serious hidden camera porn problem. So much so that the capital city of Seoul has an all-female team that regularly searches bathroom stalls and changing rooms for cameras, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

These hidden camera videos are known as “molka” porn, and they are posted to popular websites specializing in footage of unsuspecting women. The issue isn’t just cameras hidden under toilet seats or changing room doors — it’s also men using their smartphones to film up women’s skirts, or “upskirting.” The practice is so widespread in South Korea, which has the highest smartphone adoption rate in the world, that it led to the requirement in 2003 for all smartphones manufactured in the country to make a sound when taking a photo.

Molka porn cases have only grown exponentially over the years: In 2010, there were just over a thousand cases, according to AFP. By 2014, that number had boomed to well over 6,000.

While scanning a bathroom stall for cameras, Park Kwang-mi, a 49-year-old member of the team, told AFP, “It’s my job to make sure there’s no camera to film women while they relieve themselves,” she said. “It’s weird that there are people who want to see something like that … but this is necessary to help women feel safe.”

This story originally appeared on Vocativ and has been republished with permission.