The allegations are that a young woman committed suicide after her boyfriend posted indiscreet videos of her on the internet. Whether the story is true or not is not as relevant as the issues it raised. What does the law say about pornography and even more so revenge pornography? Is there any recourse for victims given that pornography at whatever level is illegal in Zimbabwe? Revenge pornography, also called non-consensual pornography, is the unauthorised sharing and distribution of sexual images of another person without their consent. It is often committed by ex-lovers to spite, hurt and humiliate their victim and maximise shame. In extreme cases, the graphic images are sent to the victim’s family and friends and in the worst cases may be upload them onto porn websites where they give their contact details in order to maximise the nuisance and damage The law Zimbabwe Section 13 of the…
pornography
A Texas appeals court last week ruled that the US state’s Relationship Privacy Act, which prohibits the disclosure or promotion of intimate images without the consent of those depicted, is unconstitutional. Enacted in 2015, the Texas law was intended as a way to stop what’s known as revenge porn, in which a person discloses intimate sexual images, online or otherwise, to cause harm and embarrassment to another person. The law covered images to those taken under circumstances when the depicted person had a reasonable expectation that the material would remain private. It’s one of 38 state laws that have been enacted in the US to combat revenge porn, also referred to as nonconsensual distribution of pornographic images because the perpetrator’s motivation – revenge or otherwise – wouldn’t mitigate the act. In its consideration of an appeal by defendant Jordan Bartlett Jones, accused in a civil complaint last year of…