Our panelists were:
Akhila Kolisetty – Co-Director, End Cyber Abuse: Akhila is a lawyer, feminist policy advocate, and writer based in New York. She has consulted and worked on access to justice, women’s rights, and the legal empowerment of marginalized communities in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and the US.
Trishna Mohan Kripalani — Legal Programme Manager, South Asia, Thomson Reuters Foundation (India): At TrustLaw, Trishna harnesses the power of law, media and multi-stakeholder initiatives to influence systemic change. She has over a decade of experience in the legal and humanitarian sector and her work on women’s empowerment was recognized by the Indian National Bar Association.
Sophie Mortimer — Manager, Revenge Porn Helpline (UK): Sophie Mortimer is the manager of the Revenge Porn Helpline, the UK’s only dedicated service supporting people affected by the sharing of intimate images without consent. She speaks regularly to the media and at conferences on the issues surrounding intimate image abuse such as domestic abuse, harassment and extortion.
Shmyla Khan — Program and Research Manager, Digital Rights Foundation (Pakistan): Shmyla Khan is a lawyer who has completed her LLM from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Shmyla has previously worked as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Pakistan and as a lecturer at the Beaconhouse National University (BNU).
Jelen Paclarin — Executive Director, Women’s Legal Bureau (Philippines). Jelen Paclarin is a feminist, educator, community worker and has been part of the women’s movement for the past two decades. She is the executive director of the Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau (WLB). WLB was established in 1990 by feminist human rights advocates wanting to effectively address the prejudices suffered by Filipino women before the law and in the legal system.
Heather Barr — Acting Co-Director, Human Rights Watch, Women’s Rights Division: Heather Barr has done research in countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea, on issues including child marriage, girls’ education, violence against women, refugee and prisoners’ rights, and trafficking.
What was discussed?
The purpose of this webinar was to open up a dialogue about the prevalence of image-based sexual abuse throughout the globe and analyze the legal options available to victims in different countries. We hoped to explore different avenues of justice for victims and how we can help address gaps in the laws and their implementation across jurisdictions.
Akhila Kolisetty from End Cyber Abuse
Akhila started the webinar by explaining that End Cyber Abuse is a collective of lawyers and activists fighting against image based abuse, more commonly known as revenge porn. She defined image based sexual abuse as sharing sexual images of another person without their explicit consent and encouraged people to avoid using the term “revenge porn” as it can often lead to further victimization. She stressed the importance of education in contexts where discussing this crime is taboo and shared that End Cyber Abuse has just launched fact sheets specific to ten different countries.
Akhila also addressed the gaps in laws across the world. For example, in countries like Bangladesh where pornography is illegal, victims sometimes do not speak up out of fear the law will be used against them. Digitally altered images are a new evolving technology that is difficult to regulate and that most laws are not updated on. In countries like US and Germany, large corporations like Facebook have very limited liability for image-based sexual abuse, which provides them little incentive to help regulate against it. However there are some laws that have been helpful to victims and can be emulated. In France, victims can seek damages against perpetrators and recoup some of the costs associated with the often expensive process of removing these images. Germany has right to privacy laws which can provide another deterrent for potential perpetrators.
Trishna Mohan Kripalani from Trust Law, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Trishna discussed her work with Trust Law, the pro bono wing of the Thomson Reuters Foundation that works closely with non-profits and hosts events such as this webinar. Trust Law has worked with more than 5000 NGOs and social enterprises and provided over 134 million dollars in pro bono hours. The Trust Law Network is very deep and is completely free to join. All of their resources are open source and available to the public free of charge. Trust Law has been an invaluable resource for End Cyber Abuse and their pro bono legal aid is a great resource to have.
Sophie Mortimer from Revenge Porn Helpline
Sophie continued the discussion by sharing her work with Revenge Porn Hotline (RPH), the UK’s only dedicated service to help victims of image-based sexual abuse. They help victims scrub all intimate images on social media sites, messaging forum sites and adult pornography sites. They are always here to listen and never to judge. Nearly 7% of the cases reported to RPH have female victims. The Hotline is getting much busier and awareness of the crime and hotline has spread. RPH went from handling 520 cases in 2015 to 1,685 cases in 2019. They have observed an increase in primarily men online requesting non-consensual intimate images, but fortunately, mainstream businesses such as legitimate pornography sites do not want illegal content on their servers and will cooperate with the Hotline. RPH removed over 22,000 images in 2019 alone and has removed 52,000 images in its history with a 90% removal rate for all cases.
Sophie then shifted to discussing the gaps in the law in the UK. Disclosing a sexual image without consent, and with intent to harm, is a crime in the UK. The main issue with this definition is the “intent to harm” clause, as it is very easy for perpetrators to claim that they had no intention to harm the victim by leaking their intimate images. The Law Commission is conducting a review and RPH has five demands to address these gaps and help victims pursue justice: protect victims’ anonymity, remove the “intent to harm” wording from the law, include threats to share images (not just sharing) as criminal offenses, widen the definitions of private and sexual, and include digitally altered images as criminally offensive.
A look at how Revenge Porn Hotline has grown throughout the years.
Shmyla Khan from Digital Rights Foundation
Next, Shymla from the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) spoke about the work they are doing to combat image-based sexual abuse in Pakistan. DRF runs the Cyber Harassment Helpline, a toll-free number that runs five days a week. It provides legal representation when the victim wants to pursue justice. Unfortunately, victims are often reluctant to seek help. Victims in Pakistan often face family pressure not to speak up, so DRF also provides digital security support and much needed psychological support for victims. DRF also works with young girls in Pakistan to provide them with awareness seminars and has conducted three sensitivity trainings for law enforcement in 2019 to train them to better recognize and confront online gendered violence.
Shmyla also spoke of DRF’s advocacy to improve the law. In Pakistan, image-based abuse wasn’t illegal until 2016 and it remains only a criminal offense, meaning victims cannot get protection through civil routes. Most of the protection for victims comes through the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act of 2016. However, this law can be used to silence women as its primary purpose is to protect the modesty and reputation of women rather than their actual safety. The other major issue with the law is that it only criminalizes the sharing of images, not threats to do so. As a result, victims are often blackmailed and threatened but no legal action can be taken until the image is shared. As there have been cases where leaked intimate images have led to honor killings of the women affected, waiting until the image is shared is absolutely not an option for many of these women. Shmyla concluded by pointing out that the lack of action taken by the government is clearly gendered. Action can be taken against journalists criticizing the government within days but women and survivors of image-based sexual abuse are always told that it will take three to four months for their case to get processed.
Jelen Paclarin from the Women’s Legal Bureau
Jelen joined to educate our audience about the laws that victims of image-based sexual abuse can utilize in the Philippines. One option they have is the Anti Violence Against Women and their Children Act, which protects women and children from coerced sexual acts and the Anti Photo and Video Voyeurism Act of 2019, which criminalizes recording or distributing sexual images without consent. However, the majority of victims, fearing social stigma and lack of anonymity, are reluctant to actually file a case. They are more interested in having these images taken down which these laws do not help them do. Jelen also talked about Cyber Sex Law of 2012, another problematic law in the Philippines. This law does not mention consent or violence and simply criminalizes all cybersex, which poses more harm to women than good.
Jelen also talked about the culture of toxic masculinity prevalent in the Philippines, which makes it difficult for women to feel comfortable speaking up about being victimized. She specifically discussed the #LonsiLeaks scandal, where text from a University of the Philippines fraternity Facebook group revealed extremely sexist and outdated misogynistic attitudes towards women. Yet, Jelen showed that despite this culture, people can be held accountable. For example, Philippines Science High school, a premier school, had a Facebook group devoted to sharing explicit photos of women without consent and even required uploading explicit photos of women to join. Campaigning from outside groups successfully prevented the students responsible from graduating.
Heather Barr from Human Rights Watch
Heather from the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, our final presenter, discussed the role international law plays in image-based sexual abuse. She explained that the two main tools international law provides to fight against cyber abuse are the Convention of the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW).
CEDAW has been ratified by 189 countries and establishes legal protection for women on an equal basis with men. Image-based sexual abuse is a crime that overwhelmingly and disproportionately affects women and consequently should fall under the protection of CEDAW. DEVAW defines violence against women as psychological as well as physical. Image-based sexual abuse can lead to physical harm but it does not currently fall under DEVAW.
Heather continued her discussion on international law by citing a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, “Online Violence Against Women and Girls from a Human Rights Perspective” (June 2018) that specifically mentioned “non-consensual distribution of intimate content” as a new form of violence against women. While defining it as violence against women is helpful, the UN needs to do more to combat image-based sexual abuse. The four strategies she outlines include: document abuse and the impact on victims, formulate recommendations for reform to international law, urge UN entities to give more detailed guidance on what states can do and urge UN bodies to incorporate this issue into their periodic reviews of countries’ compliance with international law.
What did we learn?
We learned there is a lot of interest in this topic and a hunger for discussion on the global impact of image-based sexual abuse and online gendered violence. It was also very valuable to identify the commonalities among gaps in laws across different countries, such as the issue that arises when intent to harm is part of a law, or when the law is too broad and criminalizes cyber sex, which can be used to prosecute victims. There also is a troubling trend in the rise of industries profiting from image-based sexual abuse, while organizations devoted to fighting this crime have become more vigilant and aware of this trend.
Most importantly, we have organizations and nonprofits throughout the globe working to help victims get justice and they are just getting started. As isolating as this crime can be, victims and survivors are never truly alone.