In a late afternoon in the last week of February, 2019
I received a message from Ministry of Women & Child Affairs, Government of
India congratulating me for winning the #webwonderwomen award in the category
of Legal/policy . #Webwonderwomen is an initiative of Ministry of women &
Child, BreakThrough India, an NGO which works for women and girls and Twitter
to honor 30 women from diverse fields
who had used Twitter positively for spreading awareness, reaching out to people
in need and above all, advocating for women empowerment. Among the 30 women
were women activists, lawyers, journalists, sanitation & public health
activists, food blogger & nutritionist, film maker, activist promoting breast-feeding,
women government officials and myself, who works for victims, especially women
victims of cyber crimes. There were
different heartwarming as well as heart
breaking stories told by award winners ; they shared stories of failures and success, happiness and pain, the
feeling of being ridiculed by others because of their support to other women.
No wonder, I have also gone through the same while executing my wish to help
victims of cyber crimes: I have been cyber
bullied, stalked, trolled and threatened by men and women for my work .
I have been asked ridiculous questions regarding my “attachment” with the
virtual world. Finally with this award, I could prove that being on Twitter or
Facebook or Instagram or on internet as a whole for more than the time allotted for general women by their families and
societies is not that bad. I have an “unlimited” (in regard to time) access to net and my husband respects my time on net. I am fortunate to make this space. I have
seen many women who are not allowed to be on net for more than a limited period
by their families especially men folk, who may be enjoying (consuming) avatars
of other women when their women enter the ‘restricted time period’ for net
surfing on a daily basis.
This women’s day is special because as #webwonderwomen
awardee I have become a proud ambassador of the Ministry of women and children
affairs like my fellow award winners. This is also special because on the very
day when I received the award, I saw nothing changed when it comes to cyber
crimes against women. While going through the newspaper that very morning, I
noticed two news items which made me
think how womens day becomes meaningless for several thousands of women victims
of cyber crimes : one was regarding a gang rape survivor who came across the
clipping of her own rape scene and dared to walk into the police station to
report not only about the physical rape, but also about the virtual consumption
of her physical assault by many. The second was about duping of a woman in a
renowned matrimonial site . None of these incidents is new for me. However, I
salute the rape survivor who took the matter to the police. She must have
undergone severe secondary victimization and traumatization by now just like
the other victim that I mentioned above. We do not know what would happen to
them later: how far the police and prosecution
may help them ? with a limited
legal awareness and fear of societal
taboo, many victims like these two have to withdraw their cases and disappear.
Women’s day is necessarily related to The Convention on elimination of
all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW), which was adopted by the UN
general Assembly in 1979 and which defines discrimination against women as "...any distinction, exclusion or
restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of
impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women,
irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women,
of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social,
cultural, civil or any other field."
The scope of this definition has automatically expanded to include
gender discrimination, misogyny and abuse of women’s rights online. I was more interested in the award ceremony
because of Twitter as its partner. Social media like Twitter, Faceook ,
Instagram, YouTube etc are used for women empowerment. But they are notorious
platforms for victimization of women. This year’s theme for International
women’s day is “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change” , which
signifies women empowerment in the field of technology and innovative work by
women and men alike for gender equality and betterment of situation of women across the globe. This
won’t fructify unless web companies take the responsibility of providing safety against gross abuse of
women. As women activists, many of us know that there more takers of CEDAW; but
how many States are actually ensuring proper implementation of laws especially
for women victims of cyber crimes is a question that needs to be researched.
There is no uniform law to recognize several cyber offences against women.
Majority of countries have no laws for prevention of cyber bullying, stalking,
impersonation of women, online sexual
offences targeting women. Sexting and revenge porn still fall in the
grey line in majority of the countries. It is still considered a taboo for
women to watch porn ; women who are caught watching porn/porn contents are severely moral policed by the society .
But on the other hand, when men watch porn including revenge porn and
non-consensual porn, it is still considered as normal because unless the
websites flag them as illegal , men
(and in certain cases women and children
too) may not be prevented even by the courts because apparently the victims
would not have moved the police and / or the courts for taking action to take
down the offensive contents . Majority
of these victims may be completely unaware of the fact that they have been made
subjects of online consumption as ‘sex
items’. Consider the case of
socio-economically poor women who
may be trafficked and their videos of having sexual activities may be floating
for many years without making them understand how they are being ‘consumed’ by
millions.[1]
“Think equal, build smart, innovate for change” would
be possible only when the society including the government stakeholders as a whole come together to take a holistic
step towards preventing cyber victimization of women and creating safe place
for women and girls online and in real life.
Wish you all, a very happy WOMEN’S DAY . Lets “Think
equal, build smart, innovate for change”.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If
you would like to use information provided in this blog for your own
assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2019),
" Women’s
Day, 2019 : Views of a #webwonderwoman” 8th
March, 2019 , published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
[1] See for example Halder D., &
Jaishankar, K. (2014). Online Victimization of Andaman Jarawa Tribal Women: An
Analysis of the Human Safari YouTube Videos (2012) and its Effects. British
Journal of Criminology, 54(4), 673-688. (Impact factor 1.556). DOI:
10.1093/bjc/azu026.
