Top prosecutor warns Australia’s revenge porn laws are too weak to properly protect women

AUSTRALIA’S most senior prosecutor has warned federal laws are unable to properly protect women from revenge porn attacks by bitter ex-lovers.

Sex

THE Commonwealth’s most senior prosecutor has warned federal laws are not properly protecting women from so-called “revenge porn” attacks by aggrieved ex-lovers.

The office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions says existing criminal offences are unlikely to offer women adequate protection against vengeful former partners who threaten to share private and explicit material.

Frontline legal services are being bombarded with complaints from women whose current or former partners have used, or are threatening to use, private sexual material to harass or manipulate them.

Both Victoria and South Australia have recently introduced state laws criminalising so-called ‘revenge porn’ abuses, but there remains no specific federal offence which covers the rapidly growing problem.

On the rise ... Frontline legal services say they are seeing a significant increase in the numbers of women who are victims of revenge porn. Picture: Thinkstock

Currently police can charge people under the federal crime of ‘using a carriage service to menace and harass’, but legal experts and domestic violence advocates believe this is insufficient.

In a written submission to a parliamentary inquiry on the issue, the office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions warns, “there are limitations on existing Commonwealth laws to adequately deal with ‘revenge porn’ conduct”.

It says that most commonly ‘revenge porn’ abuses will involve an individual disseminating, or threatening to disseminate, images or recordings created in intimate circumstances, with the intention of causing distress to the person depicted in the material — and only in limited circumstances is this conduct covered under existing laws.

Commonwealth prosecutors also argue that if the federal parliament decides to criminalise revenge porn, an aggregated version of the crime should be considered for victims who are under 16 years.

More legislation needed ... Currently only Victoria and South Australia have made laws criminalising revenge porn. Picture: ThinkStock

The Women’s Legal Service of NSW says it has seen a “significant increase” in technology-facilitated stalking and abuse over the last few years.

The organisation cited one example where a woman’s former partner shared an explicit video recording with another man, and that third party then proceeded to blackmail the woman by threatening to release the video unless she slept with him.

“Laws must be developed to adequately respond to the misuse and abuse of new and emerging forms of technology,” the service’s principal solicitor Janet Loughman said.

Fiona McCormack, the chief executive of Domestic Violence Victoria, said it was also critical revenge porn attacks be considered in the context of domestic violence, where women are unable to refuse to participate in the production of explicit images of materials.

“A Commonwealth law against ‘revenge porn’ would allow for a consistent response across states,” she said.

“This will be essential to ensure congruency with stalking, harassment and other laws as well as the national domestic violence order scheme”.