The Hsinchu District Court has convicted and sentenced a man to eight years in prison for coercing minors to send him nude photographs and film themselves performing sexual acts.
The defendant, Wu Yu-jui (吳育瑞), in 2021 met a 15-year-old girl while playing an online version of a social-deduction party game commonly called “Mafia” or “Werewolf,” court documents showed.
Wu had threatened to find the teenager in real life if she did not do what he asked, including performing sexual acts in video calls with him and sending him nude photos.
Photo: Tsai Chang-sheng, Taipei Times
The girl blocked Wu on the Line messaging app, and the incident came to light after her father discovered that Wu had been harassing her near their residence, court documents said.
That same year, Wu also met two 12-year-old girls in separate incidents through online games and convinced them to send him nude photos and videos of them performing sexual acts.
Wu’s actions have caused irreparable mental trauma to the girls, who worry that one day the photos would be made public, the judge said in their ruling.
His subsequent physical harassment of the 15-year-old was even more condemnable, they added.
The judge ruled that Wu contravened Article 36 of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防治條例).
Under the article, “any person who, by means of violence, coercion, drugs, fraud, hypnosis or any other means against the free will of the child or the youth concerned, causes a child or a youth to be filmed, self-film, or produce any sexual image or video, or any drawing, audio recording, or any other item that is sexually relevant and, by objective standards, arouses sexual desire or shame, shall be subject to imprisonment for not less than seven years, or in addition thereto, a fine of up to NT$5 million” (US$152,114).
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