Revenge Porn & Non-Consensual Intimate Images: The Law in Pakistan

Section 21 of PECA 2016 criminalises intentionally capturing, displaying, distributing, or threatening to distribute photographs or videos of a person in a sexually explicit or private context without their consent, in a manner that harms their reputation, or is intended to harm their modesty. The threat alone before anything is actually shared is itself an offence, meaning a victim does not need to wait for material to appear online before filing.

Consent to being photographed or filmed at the time does not extend to consent for later distribution a common misunderstanding perpetrators rely on. Material that was shared consensually within a relationship becomes an offence the moment it is distributed, or threatened to be distributed, without the subject's continuing consent.

Where images or video have already been shared, or a specific deadline for sharing has been set, speed determines outcomes more than in almost any other cyber crime scenario. The two tracks platform takedown and legal complaint run in parallel, not one after the other.

1. 1

   File platform reports immediately

   Use each platform's dedicated non-consensual intimate imagery reporting tool (most major platforms have one, separate from general harassment reports). These are typically actioned faster than general complaints.

2. 2

   Preserve everything before it disappears

   Screenshot the content, the account sharing it, and the URLs content removed by the platform can otherwise vanish as evidence too.

3. 3

   File the NCCIA complaint the same day

   Explicitly invoke Section 21 in the complaint and attach the preserved evidence this is a distinct, more urgent category than general harassment.

4. 4

   Request identity protection measures

   Ask your advocate about options to minimise the victim's name and details being exposed through the process itself.

5. 5

   Notify affected institutions where relevant

   If the victim's workplace, school, or university is at risk of exposure, a coordinated, advocate-led notification can pre-empt damage rather than react to it.

Liability is not limited to the original person who captured or first shared the material. Anyone who further distributes, forwards, or reposts non-consensual intimate content including in private group chats can also fall within the scope of the offence, since PECA targets transmission and distribution broadly, not only the original act.

• The person who originally captured or obtained the material without ongoing consent to share it
• Anyone who forwards, reposts, or redistributes the material, including in private groups
• Anyone who threatens to distribute the material, even if it is never actually shared
• Platforms or intermediaries that fail to act on a valid takedown request, in appropriate cases

A recurring fear that stops victims from filing is exposure through the legal process itself having to describe the material in detail, or having their name attached to a public record. This is a legitimate concern the process can accommodate: complaints can be drafted to reference the material without unnecessarily reproducing it, and procedural steps can be discussed in advance with an advocate to limit exposure at each stage.

Victims should never feel that filing a complaint means the material will be shown more widely as a result a competent advocate manages exactly how much detail goes where, and to whom.