CALL FOR WAR ON POSTING OF NAKED IMAGES
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NEW laws must be passed to wage war on the sharing of naked videos or photos online, campaigners insisted yesterday.
The Government has been told scumbags behind so-called revenge porn “can get away with it” under existing legislation.
Research by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties revealed the majority of victims are women.
It claims lax laws allow this type of crime to go unchecked.
The ICCL’S said Elizabeth Farries: “This sends a very clear message to perpetrators of image-based sexual abuse, who are mainly men, that they can get away with it.”
The council insists revenge porn should be called “imagebased sexual abuse.”
It added: “It is not pornography, it is abuse. It suggests the motivation is revenge, which not only suggests the victim did something to deserve it but also glosses over other motivations, including the desire to violate the victim’s dignity in a sexualised way.”
The ICCL wants the existing Non-fatal Offences Against the Person Act to be amended to outlaw the creation and/or sharing of private images without consent.
It has also called for legal aid to assist victims to take action. Controlling partners and ex-partners are the most common perpetrators, but not in all cases. The case of tragic Dara Quigley, who died by suicide after video footage of her walking naked was circulated on Dara Quigley social media was highlighted during a submission to the Oireachtas Justice Committee yesterday.
Ms Farries said: “Nobody has ever been held accountable for this appalling violation of Dara’s privacy. “CCTV footage of her without clothing was shared and viewed approximately 125,000 times.” The ICCL has outlined the action the Government needs to take.
Ms Farries said: “In our submission we make a number of recommendations for reforms to deal with this problem, including reforming legal aid to allow victims to take cases.
“We further recommend that tech companies engage with human rights reporting standards when moderating harmful online content.”
Today the Justice Committee will hear from tech giants on their policies on online content moderation.
SHARING naked images of a person online without their consent is both sick and depraved.
But it may come as a surprise to many that under current legislation it is not recognised officially as a crime.
The term “revenge porn” suggests the victim is being targeted in response to wrong doing on their part. That is victim blaming and this is not “revenge,” it is a new form of sexual abuse.
The scumbags who distribute these private images, or in some cases use the threat of sharing them with others, to scare a person are criminals and the State needs to treat them like that.