Electronic Sexual Harassment Crimes in the Jordanian Penal Legislation

Abstract

The negative use of modern electronic means has led to the emergence of a new type of crime. It is committed in an electronic environment, including crimes that constitute an outrageous sexual assault on the victim's body, which requires a legislative response. The descriptive and analytical approach is used in this paper. The study showed that protecting the body from every illegal sexual practice is the interest that the law aims to protect when it intervenes in criminalization and punishment. The criminal touches the body of the victim without his/her consent by extending to his private parts or revealing them. The study concluded that the Jordanian Cybercrime Law punished sexual exploitation crimes committed against children and the psychologically and mentally handicapped. It is devoid of any special and explicit text criminalizing the act of sexual harassment committed by electronic means such as chat rooms and electronic social networking sites. Under Article 15 of the same law, the criminalization of these crimes can be subject to the legal model of the crime of sexual harassment contained in the Penal Code.