Friday, March 26, 2010

How secure are female cyber crime counselors?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN


This blog is dedicated to all female cyber crime counselors who may have come across numbers of harassments in the cyber space for their noble fights to help other victims.

Way back in 2007 when I started experimenting my writing skill with the e-journals and mags ,I never thought what I may have to face finally. I was a very new writer and I approached a cyber law magazine named “Cyber lawtimes.com” for publishing my thoughts. The editor, Ankur Raheja,  an accomplished lawyer himself, was very kind to give me some space in his new venture, the law magazine, to express my ideas about cyber crime against women. Couple of days after my article was published; I started getting mails from individuals asking for “help” and “suggestions” for their own problems in the cyber space. I thank each of these individuals because they were the very first persons to make me understand how grave the problem of cyber crime against women could be. I started developing my own interest in the subject and started my own independent research. I came across numbers of blogs, as well as personalities, professors, lawyers and human right activists who are working on prevention of cyber crime all over the world. I started following blogs and write ups of several female cyber crime activists like Jayne Hithcock, Parry Aftab, Emma , Lynn Roberts, Citron ……to name a few and I was more surprised to see how many of such women activists had been attacked in their personal lives because they are women and they work against cyber criminals. Well, I too have joined the gang of these brave and bold  women and I did taste how it feels to be wounded in their way.
            I read Jayne’s experiences in the cyber space in many of her interviews and her own website @ http://www.jahitchcock.com/. Well it was not because she was a “she” that victimization took place in many occasions, but her being a “she” also contributed to a certain extent in the victimization process. Citron in her article “Cyber civil rights” wrote about numerous law students and female activists who were “Man- handled” for their works in the cyber space……The story actually begins here ……as cyber crime counselor and cyber right activists, many women had to sail  in the rough weather. The very common of all these harassments is probably receiving threatening mails from anonymous individuals. Next in line are obviously defamatory and bullying messages, of which I myself am a victim. Many times my husband, who himself is very much into cyber security issues, has to hear “made up” stories and ‘complains’  about me. Fortunately I haven’t come across any severe cyber sexual threats still now, but the story may not be the same with other female cyber activists. The other big disturbing factor is getting to hear not –so- funny comments about our own ability to carry on the mission because we are “women after all”.  It is really disheartening to see such messages in the inbox or message boxes ……many of you there would be smiling now , thinking “weird …..how come such silly teasing-remarks   can become crime?”…….. well, off course it is “wrong” to insult any woman in this way. Some call it “gender harassment” and  I love to term it “unwanted harassment”.
            Women are not safe….. even if “she” is into prevention /protection unit. Funnily enough, men and women both ‘love’ to  harass women cyber crime activists when it comes to save their own misdeeds .I had  mentioned in my earlier blog in  “When men turn victims  and women the offenders”, (March 2010, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com) as how women also become "cyber harassers". However,as it has always remained….when a woman cyber crime counselor/activist boldly brings up the issue to the law and justice machinery, often “Lady Justice” turns a mute spectator initially,  because  the reporting agency may never understand what the hell has happened that this woman is making such a big fuss out of that small issue…………Well….blame on us ‘human beings’…..we really never think it is not always the children who need protective internet laws but also adults who need little sense of understanding and decency to not to play with fellow human beings with internet as a weapon.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2010), “How secure are female cyber crime counselors?” March 2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com"



Monday, March 22, 2010

First conference of SASCV

With immense pride, it is announced that South Asian Society for Criminology and Victimology is going to have its first international conference at Jaipur, India. Students, academicians, professionals ...........all are welcome to  participate in the conference. Please visit   http://www.sascv.org/conf2011/ for more informations.Please note, you can present your paper/s on any one of the  themes which are announced in the website and not necessarily cyber crime alone.The  papers would be selected after a high level peer review and you may even get a chance to publish your paper in the "International journal of criminal justice sciences" ( Please visit http://www.sascv.org/ for more informations). 

Debarati