【Bhasad (2022) Hindi Web Series】

Gina Martin was watching The Bhasad (2022) Hindi Web SeriesKillers perform at a British music festival over the summer, when two guys kept hitting on her, and wouldn't take no for an answer. What happened next made her launch a campaign to change the law.

"Then, I saw one of them looking at a picture of my crotch on their phone. They had done it to get back at me for turning them down," Martin says.

Martin, 25, had just experienced "upskirting"—the act of taking secret photos or videos under a person's clothing without consent in an attempt to capture an image of their crotch area, underwear, and genitals. And, as Martin later learned, this act is not legally classed as a sexual offence under English and Welsh law.

SEE ALSO: Women endure a lifetime of sexual harassment even before they enter the workplace

Martin snatched the man's phone and ran over to the festival security. "He followed me and I handed him and the phone over to the police," she says. "They [the police] told me there 'wasn’t much we can do' and that if I 'hadn’t have been wearing knickers it would have been a different story,'" Martin continues. The police officers deleted the photo from the man's phone and told Martin to carry on with her night.

When she returned home from the festival, Martin threw herself into research and found out that there is no specific legislation against upskirting. Upskirting is already illegal in Scotland after the law was changed by the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009. But, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003—a law which pertains to the whole UK—upskirting is not considered a sexual offence.

Despite the absence of specific legislation, perpetrators can be prosecuted under other related legal acts. "You can prosecute under an old common law called 'Outraging Public Decency' but that law is for when someone has outraged the public," says Martin. Under that law, people can be charged for things like public urination, or having sex in a public place. The problem with this law, says Martin, is that it suggests acts of sexual harassment—like upskirting—are "a public nuisance," not sexual offences.

Nebulous legislation aside, a recent YouGov study found that 96 percent of people in the UK believe that a "man trying to take a photo up a woman's skirt" constitutes sexual harassment. So, why doesn't the law reflect this?

Recent attempts to bring perpetrators of upskirting to justice have come with mixed penalties. In 2008, a man was fined £500 and ordered to pay another £500 in legal fees after he was caught taking photographs up women's skirts on trains during a five-month period. Police found over 200 upskirt images on his phone and laptop. According to the Guardian, ten of the women in the pictures were "traced by police, none of whom were aware they'd been photographed." Meanwhile, other instances have seen repeat offenders receive short prison sentences.

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Martin wants to upskirting to be made illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and her #StopSkirtingTheIssue petition has already received the backing of over 74,000 people. "We need to send a message that women’s bodies are not public property and set a clear amendment to the law to deter people from practicing this type of harassment," says Martin.

"New legislation would mean anonymity for victims and would deter potential perpetrators from carrying out this act," she continues.

As well as the backing of thousands of citizens, Martin has the support of cross-party MPs and global law firm Gibson Dunn. Scotland's twelve Conservative MPs have publicly lent their support to Martin's campaign, and one MP wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice about the campaign.

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"Gina is one of thousands of women who are abused in this way every year," says Aberdeen South MP Ross Thomson. "Women like her, no matter where they live, should feel they can come forward to police and have their reports treated as seriously as other sexual offences."

He says that "stamping down harder on this type of offending" will send a message "that women's bodies are not property and sexual assault is not a prank."

So, how likely is it that we'll see tangible change to the law? Martin's lawyer is hopeful that the government will take this campaign seriously. "While it may take time to work through the detail of law reform, we see no reason why the government should not make a decision in principle immediately," says lawyer Ryan Whelan of Gibson Dunn. Whelan says the law as it stands is "an affront to the justice system."

This week, Labour MP Richard Burgon tweeted the response he received from Dominic Raab—minister of state at the Ministry of Justice—after he asked for an update on the creation of a "specific sexual offence of upskirting."

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Raab said he is "determined to ensure that the intrusive practice of upskirting is tackled robustly" and he said his "officials" were reviewing the existing offences covered on the Sexual Offences Act to "ensure they remain appropriate." He went on to say that it is "encouraging" that "such distressing behaviour has been successfully prosecuted." In light of Raab's response, Burgon tweeted that he believed the government was "still failing to act."

A spokesperson for the House of Commons told Mashablethat they do not believe that the government would "typically respond to such a petition." In the UK, the government only responds to petitions submitted on the government website when they reach more than 100,000 signatures.

Martin's case proves that the law, as it stands, is too nebulous. And, more needs to be done to remedy the law to ensure that upskirting is taken seriously.

"I think we have to consider what type of society we want to be," says Martin.

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