Lee Ga-eun often finds herself crying at home, comforted by her eight-year-old son.
She worked happily as a teacher in the South Korean city of Busan for a decade.
But in March last year, her world was turned upside down when a student showed her a picture of her face pasted onto her naked body, created using deepfake technology.
The photo was posted on a Telegram channel, where around 1.200 members used hashtags such as "humiliating female teachers."
Ga-eun (not her real name) believes that many of her students have seen these paintings of her.
"Whenever they stared at me, I couldn't help but wonder if they had seen the photo and were looking at me to check it out. I couldn't look them in the eye and lecture them regularly like I used to," she says.
She has been on sick leave for the last seven months.
"I wanted to be a teacher since I was little, and that dream has never changed," says Ga-eun.
"But now, because of depression and anxiety, I have to take five pills a day. I still feel helpless, and I think it will be a while before I can get back."
About a year earlier, an upper-grade English teacher at an elementary school in Gyeonggi Province, who we'll call Park Se-hee, was also shown a manipulated image of her on a website called Dcinside.
The photo was originally taken from a messaging app she used to communicate only with her students.
Her face, along with that of an unknown man, was pasted onto the bodies of two monkeys engaged in a sexual act.
The caption of the photo read: "Park Sehi doing THAT with her son."
She says she was so shocked that she couldn't breathe for a moment.
"For a while, I would wake up in the middle of the night, punching my pillow in anger. I couldn't control my anger. I felt helpless, and the thought that they had even implicated my son was unbearable," she adds.
"I was with these students from the very beginning and we spent three years together. I really cared about them and they loved me very much. We had a great relationship. They were known for being wonderful students, so it was a big shock for me."
She told the students that she would not report it to the police if the perpetrator admitted what he had done, but no one came forward.
She eventually went to the police, but they told her they couldn't find any evidence and closed the case without even questioning her, she says.
In the end, she gave up trying to find the culprit.
The country has recently been hit by a surge in deepfake pornography in schools.
In September, the BBC reported that more than 500 schools and universities had been affected.
In August 2024, the Korean Teachers' and Educators' Union (KTU) conducted a survey, asking teachers and students whether they had ever been victims of illegally manipulated images – 2.492 cases were reported.
The victims included students from secondary, elementary, special schools, and even kindergartens.
A total of 517 people were affected – 204 teachers, 304 students, and the rest were school staff.
Although many victims never go to the police, the number of reported cases is constantly increasing.
In South Korea overall, the number of police reports for deepfake sex crimes increased from 156 in 2021 to 1.202 in 2024.
Police figures released late last year show that 548 of the 682 people arrested were teenagers.
More than 100 of them were children between the ages of 10 and 14, who cannot be tried and punished as criminals due to their age.
But despite people becoming more aware of this deepfake porn crisis, teachers feel let down by the police.
A teacher at a high school in Incheon, whom we'll call Jihee, was shown a post on X, showing close-ups of her body parts, with the hashtag "teacher humiliation."
She says she was annoyed by the lack of police action after she reported these images, so she took matters into her own hands.
She realized that the paintings were created in one specific classroom, so she meticulously analyzed every corner of the chairs in the room to determine who made these paintings.
She eventually identified a third-year student as the suspect.
"Despite being a victim, it was maddening that I had to keep looking at these types of photos to gather information," Jihi says.
After submitting a 10-page report, the police launched an investigation, but ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence.
However, the student Jihi suspected was officially charged in another case with one of her colleagues.
Teachers are often expected to continue doing their jobs after becoming victims, even when the student suspected of being the perpetrator may have remained in the classroom.
This is in stark contrast to students, who can be instantly removed from the classroom if they report being the victim of a deepfake.
Some, like Ga-eun, took sick leave.
But if the sick leave exceeds a week, they must undergo an investigation that ultimately has to be signed off on by the school board.
Requests are sometimes rejected, meaning the complainant has to take annual leave instead.
Transferring to another school is almost impossible outside of the regular March transfer period.
"I don't know if I'm suffering more from the dipfake or from fighting the education authorities," sighs Ga-eun.
Kim Sun-mi, a school superintendent at the Busan Education Secretariat, said: "There is no law or manual that specifically states that teachers should be immediately separated from students who are perpetrators or how long the separation should last."
The only guidelines available are that a student can be moved to the back of the classroom if their act "negatively impacts the learning rights of other students."
A request can also be made to parents to provide home learning, but this cannot be imposed if the parents refuse.
Ga-eun also believes that much more needs to be done to educate students about the seriousness of deepfake pornography.
A survey conducted by the Ministry of Education in December last year among more than 2.000 upper elementary and high school students showed that there is a lack of awareness of crimes related to deepfakes.
When asked about the reasons for deepfaking sexual offenses, 54 percent of students cited "just for fun" as the main reason.
Harassment can take other forms, says Ga-eun, recalling an incident last year when a student placed a camera in the female teachers' restroom.
She adds that in the classroom, some students make frequent sexual comments and deliberately push classmates onto teachers in an attempt to make physical contact.
"When I try to reprimand this behavior, they say, 'I was just kidding,' or 'It was just a bad joke.' So many kids don't realize the seriousness of this situation. They say, 'I didn't know it was actually a crime,'" she explains.
Yoo Ji-woo (not her real name), a 16-year-old who says a classmate of hers was a victim of deepfake pornography, wonders why there hasn't been a national education campaign on the issue.
"We expected there to be education in schools across the country, regardless of whether there was an incident or not, but none of that happened," she says.
Chung Il-sun, director of the gender equality policy department at the Ministry of Education, says they see deepfake sex crimes "as a very serious issue."
"We have sent letters to schools and boards to ensure that no leniency is shown in dealing with the perpetrators and that strict action is taken."
She said the Ministry's main focus is "making sure they understand that this is not a joke but a crime" through education, awareness campaigns and other efforts.
"The government, together with the Ministry of Education, has worked hard to get this message across and students now largely understand that deepfake content is criminal."
Lee Yong-se, a senior inspector at the Korean National Police Service, said that teams dedicated to investigating cyber sexual violence have been formed in regional police forces.
Police officers are also trained in cybercrime undercover and investigations.
Police also said that as a result of their actions, the number of cases reportedly dropped from an average of 17 daily during a selected week in September to two cases daily a month later.
Jihye wishes she could go back to the life before she saw the deepfake version of herself.
"If someone had asked me if I would pay a certain amount of money to go back to the time before this incident happened, I would have agreed immediately, regardless of the cost. I wish that memory could be erased and things could go back to the way they were."
But she also remembered the student who had warned her and left her messages of encouragement.
Ga-eun says she is waiting for the day when the guilty students will come to her and ask her for forgiveness.
As a teacher, she feels a duty to ensure that they are aware of the gravity of their own actions.
"I want them to understand that it was never just a joke. I believe you must feel guilty after all. The dirty jokes you played out of curiosity... caused me a lot of pain," she says, her voice trembling.
"They completely changed my life."
Additional reporting: Eugene Choi and Hyunjung Kim
BBC is in Serbian from now on and on YouTube, follow us HERE.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic suggestion for us, please contact bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
