Sexual harassment and "revenge pornography" are new criminal offenses in the Criminal Code, and the perpetrators are subject to prison terms of at least six months and two years.
This, among other things, is foreseen in the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code, which was adopted by the Parliament at the beginning of the week.
Sexual harassment at work was experienced by 17,5 percent of women in Montenegro during their lifetime, according to the 2021 survey by the Statistical Office (Monstat) on living conditions and safety.
With the amendments to the Criminal Code, this type of harassment is now treated as a criminal offense for the first time.
"Sexual harassment, in the sense of this article, is any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, which aims to injure the dignity of a person or group of persons, i.e. which achieves such an effect, especially when such behavior causes fear or creates hostility , humiliating, intimidating, degrading or offensive environment," the Criminal Code states.
The mildest sentence, up to half a year in prison, is provided for a person who sexually harasses another person. Prosecution for that crime is undertaken by private lawsuit.
Punishments are more severe if the perpetrator is a person who has a superior role or in relation to that person the victim is in a dependent relationship, if the victim is particularly vulnerable due to age, illness, disability, addiction, pregnancy, severe physical or mental disability. In those cases, a prison sentence of up to two years is provided.
A new criminal offense was introduced into the criminal code - "Misuse of someone else's recording, photograph, portrait, audio-recording or file with sexually explicit content".
"In the age of social networks and the expansion of the Internet, 'revenge pornography' represents a social phenomenon that is taking on large proportions and is becoming a dominant form of sexual violence, predominantly against women. "Revenge pornography" refers to the actions of individuals, which include the publication of private photos or videos of intimate content, of former partners after the breakup of emotional relationships," states the explanation for the introduction of this criminal offense into the Criminal Code.
Pornography without consent, as it is added, is usually preceded by the voluntary sharing of intimate photos between partners at a time when the emotional relationship is functioning, but only with the intention that the intimate contents are intended for the then partner and with the trust that such contents will never be misused in the future.
"The concept of 'revenge pornography', although it is most often associated with the relationship between ex-partners, should be interpreted in a broader context, and bear in mind that the perpetrator does not necessarily have to be an ex-partner, bearing in mind that recordings and photographs can be made without the knowledge of the victim, by recording in intimate situations, during sexual abuse of the victim, by hacking the victim's device from which photo and video materials that were not intended for sending can be downloaded, but also by using artificial intelligence, explicit images and recordings that are manipulated with the help of software (photoshop, deepfake) in in which case it will be about the publication of virtual pornography without consent, which has the same devastating effects as the publication of real footage", the explanation states and adds that, although the phenomenon as such is not new, today's possibilities for distributing content via the Internet enable the use of content in a way that in a short time they become "viral", i.e. accessible to an incalculable number of people, and hence the wide scale of serious consequences for the victims.
"Revenge pornography" has not yet been sanctioned as a separate criminal offense in Montenegrin legislation.
According to the adopted amendments, anyone who makes available to a third party a video or other recording, photograph, portrait, audio recording or file with sexually explicit content, without the consent of the person to whom the file refers, or without the consent of the person who is shown in the video.
The same punishment is provided for the one who, using a computer system or in another way, creates a new or modifies an existing video or other recording with sexually explicit content and uses it or makes it further available, as well as the one who threatens another to make the recording available to a third party.
A person who, through information and communication technologies or in another way, makes the recording available to a large number of people, will be punished with a prison sentence of up to three years.
If the act is committed against a child, the penalty is one to eight years in prison.
If the perpetrator is an official, the prescribed punishment is imprisonment from three months to four years, or three months to five years, if the content is made available to a larger number of persons. If the crime is committed against a child, the threatened punishment is from two to ten years in prison.
The criminal acts of sexual harassment and "revenge pornography", as previously stated by the Ministry of Justice, were proposed in order to combat violence against women.
In addition to those two, the new law prescribes another 15 new criminal acts. The Department of Justice said that all of them "aim to strengthen the preventive role of the Code and influence potential perpetrators of criminal acts in such a way that they do not occur".
New criminal offenses include violation of special supervision measures, forced conclusion of marriage, cohabitation or life partnership of persons of the same sex, fraud in the performance of economic activity, insurance fraud, abuse in connection with public procurement, abuse in the privatization process, receiving and giving bribes in bankruptcy, destruction of mushrooms, unauthorized exploitation and damage during exploitation of river sediment, training animals for fighting and organizing animal fights, introduction and spread of invasive foreign species, illegal production of weapons and explosive substances, illegal trade in weapons and explosive substances, forgery and removal of markings from weapons and explosive substances and the sale of children.
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