LONDON — Gina Martin was at a concert in London last year, waiting excitedly for her favorite band to come on stage, when a man standing nearby with whom she had chatted briefly suddenly rubbed himself against her and placed his phone between her legs. She quickly realized that he had taken a picture of her crotch.
As disturbing as that was, the subsequent series of events left her even more shaken and incensed: the police let the perpetrator go, she said, because the photo was “not graphic” enough, showing only her underwear.
On Friday, Ms. Martin, 26, got her revenge. After months of campaigning by her, the British government said it would formally back a draft bill making “upskirting” — the practice of taking unauthorized photos under a woman’s skirt — a criminal offense. Violators would get up to two years in prison and be placed on a sex offender register.
But women’s rights advocates are already saying that, while welcome, the proposed legislation does not go far enough, punishing perpetrators only if prosecutors can prove that the main purpose of upskirting was sexual gratification or causing distress to the victim.
“If he doesn’t make money or if he did it just to share it among his friends and have a laugh, that’s not covered,” said Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University who specializes in the legal regulation of image-based sexual abuse. “It’s great that something is being done, but this is a first step to a more comprehensive response.”
Opponents used a procedural maneuver to prevent a vote on the bill on Friday, but the backing of Prime Minister Theresa May’s government means it is considered likely to win approval.
Lucy Frazer, a member of Parliament and under secretary of the justice ministry, said that by making upskirting a crime, “we are sending a clear message that this behavior will not be tolerated, and that perpetrators will be properly punished.” The bill was introduced by Wera Hobhouse, a Liberal Democrat.
Currently, upskirting is not a crime in England and Wales, but instead can be prosecuted as voyeurism or as an offense outraging public decency, a common law offense, under the Sexual Offenses Act. (Scotland made it a crime back in 2009.)
But experts in sexual harassment say that upskirting, as well as “downblousing,” is a growing problem, driven in large part by new technologies that can make the filming hard to detect. Ms. McGlynn said that the miniaturization of cameras has “almost certainly” contributed to the rise of upskirting. “There are instances of upskirting where cameras are fitted into bags and shoes,” she said. And in buttons, soda cans, newspapers, books and hats.
In the United States, only a handful of states have made upskirting illegal. Earlier this month, thousands of women in South Korea protested upskirting and what has been described as a national scourge of “spy cam porn” — when footage from tiny cameras placed in shower rooms or bathrooms is then released online.
In Japan, upskirting, particularly of female high school students, regularly makes headlines. In 2016, for example, a male teacher in the city of Kyoto was caught taking photos under girls’ skirts, and an entire subgenre of magazines exists around photos taken without women’s consent.
In Hong Kong, a newly renovated building was forced to place opaque panels and stickers on stairwells and walls following complaints of peeping Toms.
Ms. Martin described her ordeal in social media posts that went quickly viral and prompted other women to share their experiences. The police officer to whom she reported the incident told her: “It shows more than you’d like, but it’s not graphic,” Ms. Martin recalled in a detailed account to the BBC. “So there’s not much we can do because you can’t see anything bad. I’m going to be honest — you might not hear much from us,” he told her.
“I felt like I had no control over my own body,” Ms. Martin said. “I felt completely sort of, in disarray.”
The invasive offense has caught national attention in recent months, particularly after a vice-president of Live Nation, an American concert promoter, was given a 20-month suspended sentence earlier this year for filming up women’s skirts.
Investigators subsequently discovered that the promoter, Andrew Macrae, had collected nearly 50,000 private images of strangers without their knowledge. He was caught when an off-duty policeman noticed him placing a camera shaped like a pen in a bag that he then placed between a women’s legs at a train station.
Perpetrators have targeted girls as young as 10 in streets, nightclubs and restaurants. Over the past two years in Britain, 78 incidents were reported but only 11 suspects were charged under the current laws on voyeurism and public indecency.
In 2015, Britain made “revenge porn” — the disclosure of private sexual images without consent — a criminal offense. Previously, revenge porn cases were dealt with under copyright or harassment laws.
Source : Nytimes
