29 Apr 2013

Voyeurism among offences covered in Samoa's new Crimes Act

6:42 pm on 29 April 2013

A number of new offences have been added to the Samoa Crimes Act, which is going into effect this week.

The Crimes Act 2013 introduces harsher penalties for most sexual offences as well as amending and introducing laws to reflect the increasing use of the internet and mobile phones.

The Samoa Attorney General, Aumua Ming Leung Wai, says there had been some provisions pertaining to cyber-crime in the telecommunications act, but they were very limited and didn't cover areas such as spam and other cyber-crime offences.

"We have created a new offence, voyeurism, it's basically an offence if you were to record a person, or persons, without their permission while engaging in sexual activities. So that's been introduced. We've also used the opportunity to amend our indecent publications ordinance to prohibit the passing of indecent material using mobile phones."

The Samoa Attorney General, Aumua Ming Leung Wai, says they tried to be very comprehensive in preparing this legislation and update laws to reflect what is happening now.