Picture curtsy: Google
17 men including a 66 year old lift operator allegedly
continued to rape an 11 year old girl for months in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The gruesome
episode of “aggravated penetrative sexual assault” (as S.5(g) of the Protection
of children from Sexual offences Act, 2012 explains, whoever commits gang
penetrative sexual assault on child, is said to commit aggravated penetrative
sexual assault) came in light in mid July, 2018 when the victim confronted
about it first to her sister and then to her parents.[1] This
is not the first time that aggravated child sexual assault has been reported
from metro cities which may boast of
rigorous campaigns against any sort of sexual violence against women and
children by government as well as non government stake holders. This will
neither be the last time. Sexual assault against women and children is a social epidemic which happens in every
society, in eastern, western, northern and southern hemisphere. Sexual assault
on women and children whether aggravated or non aggravated, may be caused due
to various psycho-social reasons: while on one hand researchers relate this to
pervert mind set of human beings, on the other hand, several examples related
this to misogynist mindset, caste oppression, class oppression etc. However,
what is more concerning is the growing tendency in the assaulters to record the
sexual assaults in their digital devices. In the Chennai case, the assaulters
allegedly raped and recorded each another’s act of raping of the child victim.
These videos were used to blackmail the child to prevent her from reporting and
surrender to more sexual assaults. Often it is asked as why do these rapists,
sexual assaulters, physical assaulters and bystanders record the incidents?
We do
have one answer: these videos are made to blackmail and threaten the victim so
that she would be surrendering to the assaulter’s demand for more sex. These videos actually create something which
many of us know as non-consensual porn (and not revenge porn necessarily). Noticeably,
one of the main aims of the POCSO Act was to curb pornography, especially child
porn materials. Ss. 13 and 14 of the POCSO Act therefore spoke about creation
of child porn materials using children in any form whether or not such contents
may be used for self gratification or for circulation for unethical profit and
punishment for the same. On the other hand, if the victim is an adult, one may
have to club up Ss.375 (rape), 376D(gang rape), 354 C (voyeurism) of IPC,
Ss.66E (violation of Privacy), 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting
obscene materials in the electronic form) , and 67A (punishment for publishing
or transmitting sexually explicit materials in the electronic form) to address
the issue of creation of gang rape videos. However, as may be seen in several
reported cases of sexual assaults, rapes and gang rapes, such existing laws
could hardly do anything to control the (pervert) human minds from creating
sexual assault videos. While in majority of the cases, such videos are made to
blackmail the victim/s, possibilities of other reasons for creation of such
videos cannot be ruled out; these reasons could be as follows:
Ø Using
the same for self sexual gratification post the physical act of raping, sexually
assaulting women and children.
Ø Using
the same as erotica for sex-service providers including sex workers from whom
these assaulters may ‘buy’ sex.
Ø Showing
the same as sexual valour to ‘friends’.
Ø While
the above may be used for non-profitable reasons, such videos may also earn good
money for the creators/producers if the same is circulated for consummation by
consumers of ‘porn videos’ of deep dark net.
Ø In
certain cases these videos may also be used to threaten members of socially and
economically (extremely) backward communities so that such members do not get
indulged in any activities that may have been prohibited by so called ‘social norms’ which may not have
any legal support.
In my recently published
monograph titled Child sexual abuse and protection laws in India (published by
Sage, (https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/child-sexual-abuse-and-protection-laws-in-india/book263196)
I have shown how sexual contents available in the cyber media including digital
messaging services, social media websites and adult websites may impact on the
adolescent minds who may have been brought up in a restricted, orthodox society
where sex education itself may be considered as a taboo.
The existing
laws here miserably fail to prevent creation of sexual assault videos because
the perpetrators may remain anonymous creators/publishers. Interestingly, the Telecom
Regulatory authority of India (TRAI) allows an individual to have multiple
numbers of SIM cards. Even though the mobile network services are now being
activated only on verification of Adhar data, there still remains a policy gap
which allows customers to get “free Sims” which may have been pre-owned, swap
Sim cards with other holders who may not be using such Sims for legal purposes
etc. Along with this, the possibility of spreading the said video/s virally on
the net also creates a huge problem to identify the real publisher/creator of
the video. The courts may prescribe punishment in such cases by identifying the
accused in the videos and on the testimony of the victim and the perpetrator himself
that the video was created during the rape /sexual assault. Indeed the role of
cyber forensic examination may not be denied here. But that may involve a
lengthy process especially when the investigating officer may not be aware
about the whole mechanism. But unfortunately no law can practically prevent any
assaulter from recording the crime when it is happening. Resultant, more
videos/still images may be created and may remain unnoticed as long as the investigating
team may explore all possible devices and networks through which the same
was/were created, stored and circulated, which is practically impossible.
Facebook has
come with face-recognition mechanism to prevent online circulation of sexual
assault/rape /revenge porn materials. Other social media websites may also
follow the same method. But what we need to know is such videos may not always be
circulated through such websites. As I mentioned above, they may be stored in multiple
devices or may be made viral by networking services including digital messaging services. As such, the government
stake holder like the TRAI, manufacturers of smart phones, hi-tech digital
devices, digital messaging service providers, telecom service providers and
other international mobile network service providers must join hands in
creating a solid policy to identify mechanisms to prevent misuse of the digital
device equipped with camera, the Sim cards and of course the mobile and digital
network and communication services.
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. (2018), " Recording sexual assaults and rape in mobile phones:
How laws fail to control growing sexual
assault on women and children” 20th
July, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
[1]
For more, see https://www.ndtv.com/chennai-news/chennai-17-arrested-for-allegedly-sexually-assaulting-11-year-old-girl-in-chennai-for-several-months-1884531
