Chinese actress Jiang Mengjie a victim of ‘upskirting’: What’s this vicious offence?

In an age where everyone has a phone with a camera, crimes related to photography and videography are on the rise. The latest victim is Chinese actress Jiang Mengjie. She has opened up about upskirting and being blackmailed over footage that was taken and circulated without her consent.

Jiang Mengjie told her eight million followers on the Chinese social network Weibo that she was blackmailed over an explicit video which was filmed “many years ago”. The actor, who gained fame for the 2010 television series The Dream of Red Mansions, said that her staff came across comments about the footage online, which was later sent to her by a friend, according to a BBC report.

The video left her feeling “angry and disgusted, along with a feeling of powerlessness”.

Jiang has received praise for speaking up about upskirting. She has once again put a spotlight on the common but notorious offence, which is not considered grave enough.

What is upskirting?

Upskirting is the act of taking a sexually intrusive photograph or video under someone’s clothes without their permission. It often targets women by taking photos under their skirts, hence the name upskirting.

This offence usually takes place in public places among crowds – public transport, pubs, nightclubs – when it is difficult to spot the miscreant.

This is not a recent phenomenon. There have been instances in which people (invariably men) have placed cameras on their shoes and photographed “up” a woman’s skirt for prurient purposes. Other instances have involved placing cameras under stairs where women in dresses or skirts were likely to pass by, according to a report in The Conversation.

Upskirting also includes filming people without their knowledge as is the case of Jiang. It involves taking pictures/videos of women topless, filming them inside a dressing room or bedroom undressing, and placing cameras in public toilets or changing rooms of swimming pools.

As technology advances, so does its misuse. Small listening devices have been used to record private conversations and drones have been used to capture people in compromising positions, even from a distance, The Conversation report says.

Is upskirting a crime?

Yes, but it is a punishable offence in a handful of countries.

In the United Kingdom, upskirting can earn an offender two years in prison. Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, known as the Upskirting Act, came into force on 12 April that year after an 18-month-long campaign by writer and activist Gina Martin.

She fought to criminalise upskirting, which was not a specific offence in the UK after being targeted at a festival. Martin’s campaign got support on Facebook with 50,000 signatories to her petition and the backing of politicians and then justice minister Lucy Frazer, according to a report in The Independent.

In Australia, Andrew Laming, who was then the Queensland MP, was accused of taking an inappropriate photograph of a young woman, Crystal White, in 2019 in which her underwear was showing. When asked about the photo a year later, he reportedly said, “It wasn’t meant to be rude… I thought it was funny.”

However, it turned out that Laming was falsely accused of taking the “upskirting” photograph by media outlets and members of parliament. Last September, he settled a defamation case against Nine Entertainment over a broadcast, and received an apology and an undisclosed settlement.

While the claims against Laming were inaccurate, Australia has laws to deal with such photography and video recording.

In South Australia, it is against the law to engage in “indecent filming” of another person under part 5A of the state’s Summary Offences Act. The term “upskirting” itself was used when amendments were made in 2007 to Victoria’s Summary Offences Act, reports The Conversation.

New South Wales outlaws the filming of another person’s “private parts” for “sexual arousal or sexual gratification” without the consent of the person being filmed. And in Queensland, it is an offence “to observe or visually record another person, in circumstances where a reasonable adult would expect to be afforded privacy […] without the other person’s consent,” the report says.

Also read: How Britain is planning a new law to stop sexual harassment on the streets

In Massachusetts, in the United States, there was a huge controversy over a court decision that ruled that the law does not prohibit upskirting. The case involved a man named Michael Roberts, who was arrested after using a cell phone camera to surreptitiously take photographs up the skirts of women passengers on Boston’s public transit system, including a plain-clothes cop on a decoy operation to catch him. He was charged with violating a law that prohibits taking photos and videos of nude or semi-nude individuals without their consent.

According to Roberts, he had not committed an offence since his victims were not nude or semi-nude. While the trial court refused to dismiss his charges, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in his favour in March 2014.

A day later, an upskirting law was passed in the state. The crime is punishable by 2.5 years in jail or a fine of up to $5,000.

New York, Washington, Hawaii, Texas and Florida, among other states, have laws that make it criminal to surreptitiously photograph or otherwise record images taken of a people’s “intimate areas” without their consent.

In July 2020, Germany made upskirting a criminal offence punishable with fines or up to two years in prison.

Does China have a law for upskirting?

In China, where Jiang is being blackmailed over a video, there are no laws that outlaw the sale of hidden cameras. The BBC quotes a report from the website The Sixth Tone that said in 2020 that upskirting and voyeurism was common concern among Chinese women. To avoid this, they have started wearing an additional layer of clothing.

Secretly filming others has generally resulted in sentences no longer than 10 days, according to the report.

Jiang has now taken a stand. “It is not our fault that we have been secretly photographed. Our lives should not be affected by this kind of thing,” the actress told her followers.

One can only hope that people pay more attention to this vicious practice.

With inputs from agencies

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