"He got into my Instagram account and uploaded two naked photos": digital macho violence charges strength

Ana tenía 18 años recién cumplidos cuando se publicaron dos fotos de ella desnuda en su propia cuenta de Instagram. Más de cien personas vieron las imágenes, ambas compartidas en su historia, antes de que consiguiera borrarlas. “Sé que hubo capturas y que se pasaron por todo el pueblo”, lamenta. Está convencida de que su expareja entró en su perfil y las publicó. Lo que Ana sufrió se conoce como pornovenganza: una persona envía una foto íntima a su pareja y tiempo después, cuando se acaba la relación, el receptor la comparte sin consentimiento. Ana le pone cara a un tipo de violencia machista que cobra fuerza y que el Ministerio de Igualdad quiere combatir: la violencia de género digital.

After four years from the incident, Ana still gets nervous when she talks about it.He did not want to give his last name for fear that his ex -partner, who continues to live in his same town in northern Madrid, read this report.The young woman acknowledges that what happened on Instagram was only the top of the pattern of verbal and physical abuse that had been suffering for a few months.Of course, it was the most public episode.Equality defines digital macho violence as all "behavior of gender violence that is exercised through new technologies, social or internet networks".It can affect any woman who has a mobile or a device with Internet access.

Encarni Iglesias founded the Stop Association of Digital Gender Violence seven years ago to advise and accompany victims of these aggressions, which have, according to her, a component that distinguishes them from the other forms of sexist violence: being online, it is more public and more publichumiliating.It is not something that happens behind closed doors.An explicitly sexual image "can be viralized in nothing", warns the expert.In many cases, such as Ana's, these aggressions are born from the spite of an ex -part.

Sexual harassment through social networks and other digital platforms has doubled in the last 10 years, although experts say that the vast majority of cases are not denounced.Infractions of this type have gone from 63 in 2011 to 124 last year, according to the latest data on cybercriminality of the Ministry of Interior.Among these crimes is porneVeganza and sextorsion, when a person is blackmailed with sexual content files.The repercussions of these aggressions can be tragic, as in the case of Verónica, 32, who committed suicide in Madrid in 2019 after her co -workers shared without their permission a sexual video in which she appeared.Or Tiziana, 31, who took his life in Naples in 2015 after his ex -partner spread his intimate recordings.

Gender violence in the digital field is one of the main axes of the future Law of Sexual Liberty, popularly known as the law of the only one is yes, approved by the Council of Ministers last July and now pending to go through Congress.The draft states that "special attention will be paid to sexual violence committed in the digital field", such as non -consented pornography and sexantsion.

In addition to social networks or messaging applications such as WhatsApp, photos can end on pornography websites, always without the consent of those who appear in them.Jennifer, 29, is one of the more than 80 women, including several children, who were recorded while urinating in the street during the pilgrimage of Maruxaina of the summer of 2019, in the Galician town of San Cibrao.The videos, in which their faces and intimate parts appear, were recorded with hidden cameras and ended on online porn pages, several payment.Jennifer was "in shock": "I would never have imagined that my clients, my friends or my neighbors would see me on a porn page".She, like other victims, went to a psychologist to deal with trauma."It affected me a lot, especially because I thought about what the people of me would say," he says.

It was a year later, in 2020, when Jennifer and the others affected learned about this abuse to their intimacy and filed a demand to investigate who had done it.At the end of last month, a judge from Lugo (Galicia) dismissed the cause, against the criteria of the Prosecutor's Office, and assured that recording intimate images of women on the street and uploading them to a porn platform does not constitute a crime, since it occurred in public roads.However, the Women's Association on Equality of Burela (Bumei), which supports the victims in their judicial struggle, has submitted an appeal against this decision before the Lugo Provincial Court.José Manuel Oliveros, the lawyer who takes the case of these women, believes that the future law of sexual freedom will not be enough to combat this type of aggression: “The regulations do not entail a modification of article 197 of the Criminal Code”.Therefore, although the Criminal Code punish the unauthorized dissemination of intimate images, it will only be considered a crime if the recordings were obtained in “an address or anywhere else outside the reach of third party's gaze”, according to the text.

The magistrate's decision has left Jennifer without words: "We feel a lot of frustration and we do not understand why the judge does not even let it investigate".Mary Fraga, president of Bumei, considers that what happened in the pilgrimage of A Maruxaina is "a clear example of digital gender violence".In addition, Fraga adds, “the decision of this judge can bring very dangerous consequences in the struggle for women's freedoms and rights, because impunity is being given to anything that is recorded on public roads without the consent of the woman".

Ana also denounced what she suffered, but, like the women of Galicia, she does not believe that justice has been done in her case.In 2018 he had a rapid trial in the Court of Violence over Women in Alcobendas, in Madrid, but could not prove that his ex -boyfriend was the one who published the images on Instagram, since they were published through Ana's profile, not their own bill.To be able to prove it, I had to submit to a longer trial."At that time I had just turned 18.I just wanted to take out all this nightmare from above and I said no, ”explains Ana.His ex -part.