The fact that the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee ex­am­in­ing key as­pects of The Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) (No.3) Bill, 2021 has been giv­en just three weeks to de­liv­er its re­port is a hope­ful sign that this cru­cial piece of leg­is­la­tion will be treat­ed with ur­gency as it makes its way through Par­lia­ment.

T&T needs this Bill to be­come law so that sex­u­al of­fences that have be­come quite com­mon­place in this dig­i­tal age can be de­ci­sive­ly ad­dressed. The ca­pac­i­ty to use sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it ma­te­r­i­al or pornog­ra­phy to abuse or in­vade the pri­va­cy of oth­ers has in­creased ex­po­nen­tial­ly since the ad­vent of the in­ter­net.

The hope is that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, re­gard­less of their po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions, will en­sure the best pos­si­ble ver­sion of this pro­posed leg­is­la­tion be­comes law, soon­er rather than lat­er.

The de­bate of the pro­posed amend­ments in the Up­per House on Tues­day showed that the is­sues were of con­cern to many of the leg­is­la­tors and there were very many valu­able con­tri­bu­tions com­ing from all sides.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al is to be com­mend­ed for point­ing out how in­ac­cu­rate­ly of­fences ad­dressed in the amend­ments are de­scribed.

She is right. It is not re­venge and it is not porn. The de­viant be­hav­iour de­scribed in the Bill is sex­u­al abuse that in­volves the deep­est be­tray­als of trust, a type of be­hav­iour from which cit­i­zens are un­pro­tect­ed.

It should be made clear that the Bill laid in Par­lia­ment by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi tack­les var­i­ous forms of im­age-based sex­u­al abuse, in­clud­ing the harm­ful use of tech­nol­o­gy in in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ships.

It can­not be em­pha­sized enough that re­venge porn is a com­mon­ly used but in­ap­pro­pri­ate term for im­age-based sex­u­al abuse such as on­line post­ing of sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it vi­su­al ma­te­r­i­al, with­out the con­sent of the per­son por­trayed. This in­cludes pho­tographs and videos ei­ther tak­en con­sen­su­al­ly and shared via sex­ting or tak­en covert­ly.

The Bill al­so ad­dress­es voyeurism---per­pe­tra­tors are com­mon­ly re­ferred to as Peep­ing Toms---de­viant sex­u­al be­hav­iour that has long ex­ist­ed, but which has gained mo­men­tum be­cause of the many op­tions now avail­able elec­tron­i­cal­ly to com­mit such of­fences.

The tough penal­ties pre­scribed in the Bill---fines rang­ing from $250,000 to $750,000 and prison terms of two to five years---seem to be ad­e­quate as de­ter­rents. How­ev­er, as is the case with many of the laws in this coun­try, suc­cess will re­quire strin­gent and con­sis­tent en­force­ment.

The onus is on leg­is­la­tors to crit­i­cal­ly ex­am­ine and de­bate this pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, sug­gest amend­ments as re­quired to plug all the loop­holes and safe­guard against abuse and wrong­ful ap­pli­ca­tion of key pro­vi­sions.

This is im­por­tant be­cause the Bill can, in some in­stances, af­fect mi­nors who can of­ten be vic­tims but al­so can be caught as per­pe­tra­tors. The in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia has nor­mal­ized cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties, such as the shar­ing of sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it im­ages, which can fall un­der the am­bit of the leg­is­la­tion.

But pass­ing a strong law will not be suf­fi­cient if it is en­act­ed with­in a frame­work that is de­void of the nec­es­sary poli­cies and re­sources to en­sure its ef­fec­tive­ness. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this has been the fate of many laws cur­rent­ly on the books.

Let’s hope that in the case of The Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) (No.3) Bill, 2021, things are be­ing done dif­fer­ent­ly and bet­ter.