Despite many stories of blackmailers and their methods being reported in the media, the phenomenon continues. Arab News has reported on several cases of blackmail that are being investigated at the moment by officials of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Ha’ia) in Jouf where young women were victims.

One young woman was also accused of blackmailing her women friends. The woman reportedly passed a photograph of her colleague to a young man who misused the photograph to blackmail the woman. The Ha’ia received a complaint from the young woman accusing the young man and his friends of harassment.

According to an article published on Saturday, Nasir Al-Marri, a legal consultant addressed the need to reconsider the regulations governing blackmailing women. The idea is not to punish the woman which leads to the recurrence of the crime. He pointed out that current instructions from the Ha’ia are to conceal the woman’s identity and not punish her. He said that women should be confronted and held accountable just as men are; in that case, there would be balance and justice.

Al-Marri said that he had come across a number of cases in which the victim was the man. He said some women leave their indecent photos intentionally in the man’s apartment or on his phone so they blackmail the man to either pay or they report to the Ha’ia that he is blackmailing them. Later on the girl is  protected and the man is punished for something he didn’t even commit.

He also said that this was the reason why the regulations should be changed because women are familiar with the system and can use it for their own advantage which is asking for money. “Even if the judge knows that the young man is innocent, he is punished because the evidence of images are found in his car or apartment,” said Al-Marri.

The police as well as the Ha’ia often arrest men who blackmail women into giving them money or having sex by threatening to publish their pictures on the Internet. The occurrence of women blackmailing men is, however, very rare. Although Saudi culture forbids relationships outside marriage between the sexes, men and women still form secret relations. It is the clandestine nature of such relations that some men take advantage of. Fearing a scandal, women allow themselves to be manipulated and blackmailed and very few have the courage to report the situation.

In some cases, victims were in relationships with their blackmailers and willingly parted with pictures. In other cases, women were not in relationships and were targeted. The question arises as to whether women who willingly part with their pictures should also be punished. Some feel they should while others disagree.

Asharq Al-Awsat reported in 2009, that the Ha’ia announced it had monitored 65 cases of men blackmailing women with photographs. Although some women are part of the problem because they are involved in an illicit relationship, they are normally not punished while the men are.

Tariq Jamal, a 31-year-old computer engineer, said that he had never read about women being confronted in blackmailing cases although the mistake was theirs from the beginning. “The girls allow men to manipulate them when they share photos with them.

In the end, the man is a stranger because everything here is done secretly,” he said. Jamal believes the woman should be punished because she allowed the man to blackmail her so the blame must be shared between the two.

Leena said that she was blackmailed once by her ex-fiancé. “He fooled me into thinking that he loved me and I shared my personal photos with him. When I decided to break  the engagement he threatened to show the pictures to my brothers and I was terrified because they are very strict,” she said.

Leena told her mother and she called the man’s family and gave them evidence about his drug addiction and how he had threatened her daughter. “His parents were very understanding and everything was over,” she said.