Almost a month and half back the whole south India woke up
to a rather “juicy news” of “Bhavana” molestation case. She is not “Nirbhaya.” Her
name was not given by the any legislator or judge or executive to protect her
identity. Bhavana is a Malayalam female cine-star whose real name can be found
in Wikipedia and numerous film magazines. She was apparently molested in a
moving car by some including her former drivers. As the news report suggests,
the perpetrators also took ‘objectionable’ photos of her while the incidence
was going on. The news surfaced exactly when I was enjoying the sweet success
of publishing my latest article “Celebrities and cyber crimes:an analysis of
the victimisation of female film stars on internet” published in Temida: Journal
on victimization, human rights and gender Volume 19 • Issue 3-4• 2016 .
We the movie fans often understand that actors or actresses
may themselves attract negative publicity by voluntarily getting into troubles
or playing the victim card. But in some cases this may not be true. Women actors
may face numerous problems, harassment and threats in real life as well as
virtually. One of such problem is facing voyeurism and revenge porn almost on
daily basis. Some actors turn numb to such harassment as they take these as (negative)
part of their work. Some may reach out
to police to show genuine concern. In Bhavana’s case, a minute analysis would
show that she was not only physically violated, but also she became a victim of
‘revenge porn’, a term that our laws still do not recognise and tries to cover
it up by numerous legal provisions which may not provide the actual answer. I call it ‘revenge porn’
because once such ‘objectionable’ pictures were taken; it would not take more
time to get it circulated through WhatsApp. These contents may then
land in various ports including to the secret sellers of porn clippings and obviously
to the XXX rated sites. No one, not even the police may do anything to prevent
secondary victimisation of the victim in such cases.
What concerns me more is publication of her name. S.228-A of the
Indian Penal Code prohibits publishing, printing etc of the name and information of the victim/s
who may have been victim of rape or sexual molestation. This protection is
brought in to protect the privacy of the victim and more so, to encourage women
victims of sexual violence to come up for reporting of crimes without the fear
of ‘recognition’ and resultant possible social exclusion. But this provision
also has a loose noose : when the victim herself allows to publish her name or
identity, this provision will cease to help the victim. We don’t know whether
Bhavana herself permitted the reporters to use her name and photograph but I
can definitely understand that this has again created a bad example of ‘no
identity protection’. Common people who may not be expected to know the pigeon
holes of law, would understand a completely different story: reporting would
bring media highlight which will destroy the physical and mental privacy
of the victim and her family. But this does not mean that I am ignoring the
provisions of S.228-A, IPC. Women victims must also be made aware of this twist
of law relating to identity protection. We may expect good and bad results of
this: the provision may be misused, women may be able to take a rational
decision.
Let us, the civil citizens take a preventive decision to
not to spread any offensive videos/still images of women actors even if it may
surface as apparently (ugly, unethical movie promo) genuine. Let us respect all
women as equal irrespective of their job.
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. (2017), " How ‘yellow journalism’ and internet is failing the women
victims of online harassment and revenge porn” 1st April, 2017, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
