The Committee on Women and Gender Equality in the House of Representatives is currently discussing proposed amendments to the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children law (RA 9262) to include electronic VAW.
House Bill 1330 filed by Gabriela Women’s Party aims to penalize the following as violence against women in the internet and use of technology:
1) unauthorized recording, reproduction or distribution of videos showing the victim’s private area or the victim’s naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks or breasts;
2) uploading or sharing without the consent of the victim any media that contain pictures, voice or video with lewd, indecent or sexual content or context;
3) harassing or threatening the victims;
4) stalking, and
5) using the victim’s video, picture, voice, name or any other aspect of the victim’s identity in any video game, phone application, program and the likes, which puts or tends to put the victim in a bad light
According to proponent and Gabriela Rep. Emmi De Jesus “the proposed bill seeks to plug a legal limbo in the law that prevents victimized women from pursuing a case against spread of their private images and words.”
