Revenge Pornography, A Trend That’s Hurting Women And Teenagers; Requires Stricter Laws To Control

According to a legal study, Australia requires stronger laws to prosecute pornography related crimes on the Internet that are primarily driven by revenge.

Though the crime patterns are relatively new, it’s a growing trend among many jilted lovers. This week, hundreds of South Australian women’s intimate photographs were reportedly floated around the Web.

Dr. Nicola Henry, a senior faculty from La Trobe University’s legal studies pointed out that many countries have introduced specific revenge pornography legislation. She said, in the Philippines, pornography related crimes such as distributing images without the consent of the subject could send a person behind bars for up to seven years.

Countries like Japan, New Zealand, and Canada also have similar laws against pornography related crimes. 17 states in the U.S. have introduced new types of laws to control revenge pornography. Similar kinds of laws were introduced in the U.K. last year.

Australia also needs to take adequate measures to strengthen such laws, said the senior faculty.

Measures beyond law to control such crimes

"We should be thinking about a mechanism beyond law, beyond the criminal law as well, but certainly law has expressive value in terms of demonstrating to the community that the posting of intimate images is unethical," said Dr. Henry.

"I think the importance of having specific legislation criminalising these particular [phone] apps is important and it does serve as a kind of expressive value,” she added.

In her opinion, authorities should think of widening the laws around revenge driven pornography across Australia.

The Victims Accounts

A young woman from Adelaide was disappointed when she found her private photos up on a United States online notice board called 4chan. But she wasn’t alone, her photo is among 400 other images of women and teenagers, lifted from private Facebook accounts or misused by their ex partners.

Meanwhile, South Australia police said such concerns are quite common these days, in fact, they receive endless complaints about the website in question everyday.

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