Quebec wants to tackle 'scourge' of sharing intimate images without consent
Photo: pexels
Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barette announced on Wednesday evening, in a highly original move, that the Quebec government was preparing to legislate on the sharing of intimate images without consent.
In a video posted on the Minister of Justice's social networks, a text message appears saying, "A little glimpse of my evening last night ;)," followed by a blurred image of a person appearing to be naked, over which the text gradually appears: "1 in 5 teenagers has already received an intimate image of someone who did not consent."
Jolin-Barette then appears on video to announce that the CAQ government intends to tackle the problem as early as Thursday, describing the sharing of intimate images without consent as a scourge.
"It could be your daughter, your son, your sister. It only takes a text message to break someone," the minister says in the video.
Jolin-Barette will table a bill on Thursday.
The bill is entitled An Act to counter the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and to improve civil protection and support for victims of violence.
Cases of non-consensual distribution of intimate images are on the rise, according to Statistics Canada. The census group indicates that the number of cases of non-consensual distribution of intimate images has risen from 726 in 2019 to 1,168 in 2023.
However, it is, above all, the sextortion that can result from this that has exploded.
According to the latest data published by the federal agency, the number of cases of sextortion reported to the police in Canada has jumped by nearly 300 per cent in almost a decade. Much of this increase occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sextortion is a crime that caught the eye of Canadians when a 15-year-old British Columbia teen committed suicide in 2012 after being harassed by a bully hiding behind her anonymity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 3, 2024.
With information from Brieanna Charlebois
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