How One Woman Made Upskirting A Sexual Offense

Upskirting, the act of taking a photo or video up someone's skirt without their consent, has been made a sexual offense in England and Wales.

Gina Martin, a 27-year-old writer and campaigner, has successfully changed the law on upskirting. She decided to launch a campaign to make upskirting a sexual offense when she was upskirted in 2017 and discovered that there was nothing the police could do.

Martin was in the crowd watching rock band The Killers at London's British Summertime Festival in July 2017 when some men attempted to flirt with her. She rejected their advances multiple times.

"I felt something brush up against my back and I didn't think anything of it. Then a few minutes later I saw one of the guys on his phone and he'd been sent a picture up someone's skirt," says Martin. "I just knew it was me straight away."

Martin grabbed the phone and ran through the crowd to the police, with the man chasing after her. When she found an officer, they told her there was nothing they could do because the photo wasn't classed as an "indecent image" and the case was immediately dropped.

Upskirting wasn't a specific sexual offense in England and Wales. Although it could technically be prosecuted under the common law offense of "outraging public decency" or voyeurism, there were lots of gray areas and loopholes that meant prosecutions were rare.

Martin decided to take matters into her own hands and launched an online petition to make upskirting a specific sexual offense. After attracting over 100,000 signatures, she then teamed up with lawyer Ryan Whelan to take the bill to the U.K. Parliament.

Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse backed the campaign and put forward a private members' bill. Through months of campaigning and meeting with MPs, the justice minister Lucy Frazer announced that the government would also support the upskirting bill.

But there were hurdles along the way. In June 2018, Sir Christopher Chope MP objected to the bill in the U.K.'s House of Commons, saying that he disagrees with using private members' bills to introduce legislation.

Chope's objection was heavily criticized by fellow MPs, with bunting made out of underwear hung across his office door in protest. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May issued a statement expressing her "disappointment" over his actions.

Despite previous reassurances from the government that the bill would still be passed another way, the set-back was devastating for Martin. "If I had come out of the House of Commons and allowed myself to think that for a second it wasn't going to happen I would've just lost it," she says.

On September 5, 2018 the Voyeurism (Offenses) Bill was passed in the House of Commons, and was approved in the House of Lords on January 15, 2019 to become law.

Upskirting is now recognized under the Voyeurism Offenses Bill. It makes upskirting punishable by a maximum of two years in prison, and for the worst cases, the offender can be placed on the sex offenders register.

Martin has urged other women to not accept harassment as just a part of living as a woman, and acknowledged that the #MeToo movement has set a precedent for women to take action.

"I probably wouldn't have gone forward and tried so hard and felt like I could if that tide hadn't changed a little bit," she says.

Martin has received hundreds of messages from women and girls who have been upskirted, and says it was their testimonies and support that kept her motivated. "It's been women from all over the world," she says, "which is just amazing because it feels like we're opening a conversation further than the U.K."