Gina Martin was at a music festival watching a movie titled “The Killers last summer” when two men trying to get her attention by making advancement. She ignored them. After a while, she saw one of the men looking at a photo of her crotch on his phone.
She had just been “upskirted” — that is, taking photos or videos under a person’s clothes without consent in an effort to capture a person’s crotch area, underwear, and genitals.
Martin, 27, immediately reported the men to police at the festival, but she was disappointed by the response of policemen as there wasn’t much they could do; claiming if she had not been wearing skimpy short skirt it would have been a different story.” The police officers deleted the photo from the man’s phone and that was all.
SEE ALSO: Why this woman wants to make ‘upskirting’ a sexual offence in the UK
When she returned from the festival, she found out that upskirting was not legally considered a sexual offence under UK law. And she was not happy with this outcome, Martin launched the #StopSkirtingTheIssue campaign to petition the government to criminalise the offence. One year on, the law in the UK is changing and it’s all because of Martin’s tireless campaigning.
After lots people support Martin’s petition to make upskirting illegal, she took her campaign to the only place that can turn signatures into legislation: the UK government.
“I’ll be so encouraged by the fact that one ‘normal’ person can make a difference and change things!”
Martin told Mashable she’s been having meetings in parliament since October 2017 and she gained cross-party support from politicians across the house. “They all agree that what Ryan (my lawyer) and I were proposing wasn’t controversial, the gap in the law should be closed and law professionals from across the country agreed with us,” says Martin.
The process isn’t signed and sealed quite yet, though. Martin and the government have put forward a bill that “will become law soon.” She’s working closely with the Ministry of Justice to ensure it goes through. Once it hits the statute books — the book in which laws are written — Martin says it will feel “incredible.”
“Apart from being able to have brought meaningful change, I’ll be so encouraged by the fact that one ‘normal’ person can make a difference and change things!” she adds.
🚫 Your body is not public property
🚫 How you dress does not contribute to harassment/abuse
🚫 Sexual harassment is NOT a 'prank' or 'joke' pic.twitter.com/VCW5O04Tqg— Gina Martin (@beaniegigi) October 24, 2017
Under the existing Sexual Offences Act 2003, upskirting is not considered a sexual offence. Because of a lack of specific legislation, perpetrators have been prosecuted under other loosely related laws. Some offenders have been charged using an old common law called ‘Outraging Public Decency’, under which you can be prosecuted for public urination, or having sex in public. But, prosecuting using this law suggests that upskirting is more of a “public nuisance” rather than a sexual offence. Because of this legal grey area, and the absence of a specific offence of upskirting, the penalties for those being brought to justice have been mixed. One man was fined £500 ($642) in 2008 and ordered to pay another £500 in legal feeds after he repeatedly took upskirt photos on trains over the course of five months. Other instances have seen repeat perpetrators receiving short prison sentences.
But, once the new law comes into place, upskirting will not only become a specific criminal offence, it will also be punishable by up to two years in prison. And the “most serious offenders” risk being placed on the sex offenders register, per the Ministry of Justice.
The road to making upskirting a sexual offence has not not been without some rather large obstacles. In June 2018, a bill criminalising the offence was blocked by Conservative MP Christopher Chope. Martin was sitting opposite Chope — who previously voted against same-sex marriage in the House of Commons when he shouted: “Object.”
“I was pretty upset and disappointed,” says Martin. “But, we knew that was a risk, we knew he was going to do it and had been trying to stop him.” It later emerged in a radio interview that Chope didn’t actually know what upskirting is. The MP also claimed he objected on principle because he doesn’t agree with legislation being considered on a Friday when there isn’t, in his view, ample time in which to properly debate it.
But, Martin didn’t lose hope. Chope’s actions were “more annoying” than anything else, she says. “I knew it wasn’t over, the government had assured me that even if [Chope] did do it, they wouldn’t let it go,” Martin added.