Five-year Jail Terms for Leaking Nudes
Individuals who send or share nude pictures and sex tapes risk going to jail for up to five years if the recently gazetted Cyber Security and Data Protection Bill becomes law.
Nudes and sex tapes have been part and parcel of Zimbabweans’ entertainment over the years. People have been sharing nudes and sex tapes of ordinary citizens, university students and celebrities.
People like socialite Pokello Nare, musicians Stunner and Sebastian Magacha, former Miss Zimbabwe Thabiso Phiri and radio and television personality Tinopona “Tin Tin” Katsande have been victims of sex tapes and nudes being leaked to social media. The leaking of explicit content might have elevated people like Pokello to stardom but the result has not been the same for Phiri who was instantly dethroned as Miss Zimbabwe and Tin Tin who was fired from her job at ZiFM Stereo.
Research has shown that some of the leaked sexual explicit material is in fact revenge porn by victims’ disgruntled partners. In a bid to protect citizens, the new Bill seeks to jail individuals that leak or publish nude pictures on social media/online.
An individual who leaks or publishes intimate images without consent risks being jailed up to five years if the bill that was gazetted on Friday becomes law.
“Any person who unlawfully and intentionally by means of a computer or information system makes available, broadcasts or distributes a data message containing any intimate image of an identifiable person without the consent of the person concerned causing the humiliation or embarrassment of such person shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 10, or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years or to both such fine and such imprisonment,” read the bill.
In Clause 164E which deals with the transmission of data with intimate images without consent, the bill states that “intimate image” means a visual depiction of a person made by any means in which the person is nude, the genitalia or naked female breasts are exposed or sexual acts are displayed.
Activists have said the leaking of sex tapes and nudes is a form of Gender Based Violence and have been calling on Government to come up with stiffer penalties to deter would be offenders
