“… private sexual images or films showing a particular person that are put on the internet by a former partner of that person, as an attempt to punish or harm them.”
The incessant re-occurrence of revenge porn in this age of social media calls for more awareness as to the rights of the victims and the consequences of such actions to the offenders. One of the many important roles of Law in a society is protecting and ensuring the rights of people in the given society. Likewise, to regulate the behavior of members of the society. As such, Section 37 of the 1999 constitution guarantees one of such rights, which is the right to privacy, providing that, “the privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications is hereby guaranteed.”
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The moral standard of a country such as Nigeria is held in very high esteem and as such, morals, values and beliefs of Nigeria serve as underlying sources of its laws, hence, the need to protect it. Various laws and regulations have been put in place to protect public morality and to provide consequences to actions which negate public morality. Some of which include the Criminal Code Act, 1990 and the Cybercrime Act, 2015.
Section 1(a) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 establishes that the objective of the Act is to, “provide an effective and unified legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of Cybercrimes in Nigeria.” It can therefore be said that revenge porn is also a cybercrime punishable by law as it involves the use of technology and communication media.
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To serve as a determent for this act, Section 24(a) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 provides that:” Any person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer systems or network that is grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character or causes any such messages or matter to be so sent; … commits an offence under this Act and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of not more than #7, 000, 000.00 or imprisonment for a term of not more than 3 years or to both such fine and imprisonment. This legal provision out rightly criminalizes and provides the punishments for revenge porn.
Following the above stated provision, Section 376 of the criminal Code Act reiterates the offence of blackmailing providing that: Any person who publishes, or threatens to publish, or offers to abstain from publishing, or offers to prevent the publication of defamatory matter, with intent to extort money or other property, or with intent to induce any person to give, confer, procure, to upon, or for, any person, any property or benefit of any kind, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.” This clearly shows that blackmailing a person with nudes, sex tapes or any other pornographic material as well as publishing it is a criminal offence and is punishable by law.
Social media has become a tool used by deviants to carry out their personal vendetta against individuals in the society and this calls for the need to be aware of ones rights as well as the laws that protect them.
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