Last month, we reported that recently-'disgraced' MP Maria Miller has been campaigning against revenge porn from the backbenches of Parliament. Now it seems as if her rallying cries to make it illegal for someone to upload pornographic images or videos of someone else without their consent are being listened to.
Chris Grayling, Justice Minister, told the Commons yesterday: 'It's clearly becoming a bigger problem in our society. The Government is very open to having a serious discussion about this with a view to taking appropriate action in the autumn if we can identify the best way of doing so'
It's now believed that the Ministry of Justice will be looking at how current sexual offences laws can be simply amended to make the distribution of sexual images without someone's consent a crime*.
Campaigners say there has not yet been enough done to tackle this rising issue; at the moment, there are laws against 'malicious communications,' but this refers to written abuse, not explicit images. Plus, an image being posted online doesn't count as harassment until it is posted more than once. And though the nature of the internet means that once an image is uploaded online it can be reposted all over the web, it shouldn't have to get that far for a sleazebag looking to humiliate his ex (and yes, it normally is men uploading photos of women) to be criminalised.
In Germany, a court ruled that a man had to delete all photos of his ex off of his computer, in case they were uploaded to the internet. Plus, some of the makers of revenge porn sites in Americahave been successfully sued for the sorts of content they put on their sites. Time for Britain's authorities to join the kickback against this hideous practice, we say.
** Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson**
Picture: Eylul Aslan
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.