A LIMERICK woman who started a campaign to make ‘revenge porn’ a criminal offence has warned that lives will be lost unless action is taken against on-line offenders.
Megan Sims’ warning came as she asked politicians to amend and strengthen a bill making its way through the Dáil which would make sharing images without consent a criminal offence.
She said she wanted those involved in the leaking of thousands of images which emerged this week to be prosecuted and she pointed out that currently, Irish women have no legislation to protect them.
Ms Sims launched an on-line petition earlier this year to make ‘revenge porn’ a criminal offence.
The 24-year-old was the victim of intimate pictures being posted to the internet when she was just 19 years old. Her campaign received a massive response.
In August, she slammed a HSE suggestion that people could avoid Covid-19 by having internet sex, warning that it could increase the risk of vulnerable people, especially women, having intimate pictures posted on the internet.
It emerged this week that anonymous forums were sharing and trading intimate pictures.
Some of the images were of underage girls and others of women who appear to have been photographed without their knowledge.“Someone will end up dead. Someone is going to die if they don’t take action. The internet is not a safe place to be a woman right now,” Ms Sims warned.“This should be a crime. It shouldn’t be left to us to try to get these pictures taken down. I have never seen an outpouring like this before over image-based abuse. The Government must take action, now.”
