CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
I was reminded of a beautiful reality of being a woman by
the official Tweet of the #UNWomenWatch
which showcased this year’s theme for internetnational women’s day as “equality
for women means progress for all” ( see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/).
But the reality of being woman is not a beautiful experience for all women
always. I would tell why I think so:
Very recently I was invited to be a panellist in a workshop
on cyber security by Kerala child rights commission. I had a wonderful
experience as a contributor. But I learnt more than what I contributed as a
resource person and a panellist. Kerala like many other states in India is a
beautiful place with lots of natural resources, beautiful water bodies and
excellent schools. As an outsider to Kerala
culture the first thing that striked me
was the dressing of women and the freshness in their look. I noticed that bathing
spots like temple tanks, river banks and falls are flocked by local women and
children during specific times in the day and men avoid these ‘women only’
places . I was under the impression that social culture in here was very different
from northern Indian states, and I started feeling happy about it especially when
I get to hear that rape culture is most anticipated in such circumstances in
Delhi and nearby places. But when I learnt the reality from other resource
persons , I felt more than worried; many children are ‘employed’ by adults to
take pictures of bathing women in such public bathing places . Nevertheless,
Kerala could be the biggest contributor for Indian adult websites and this may
be because of these innocent ‘employees’ or should I say ‘victims’ of the
larger porno industry rackets. Kerala is just a model; I did notice many other
places in other states where people throng to public bathing places, beaches
and even public places like temples armed with smart phones to do their own bits
of voyeurism with women’s body. Men may ask the children in their groups to
take snaps of bathing women and later
these children would be rewarded by delicious snacks to even one more opportunity
to take such ‘reckless’ photographs of women. Have you ever thought of the scenes in rural of semi urban or even
urban places when women take such snap
shots of bathing men or general public where men are heavy in number than
women? Such scenes are rare unless the women are not researchers, or
journalists or even ‘citizen journalists’ who amaturely contribute news and
clippings to the news media. Women cannot be ‘gazers’ in public places to men,
leave the bathing men. If a woman dares to ape her male counterpart in this aspect
just to show her boldness and try to make men realise the same feeling of embarrassment
as women feel by her body language, she may either be subjected to counter sexual
harassment by men present there or may be ridiculed by society for being ‘besharam’
,a girl without any sense of morality. The
society teaches inequality in this aspect from the very beginning of childhood.
Resultant, girls grow up to be women constantly being victims of visual rape or sexual harassment right from their childhood days not only by men, but also by young children.
What would be the treatment of these girls and women when
they go online with their bathing beauty sex bomb avatar? In most cases these
victims of voyeurism may never get to know their victimhood status especially
when they belong to the below the poverty line range where they can’t afford to
have independent internet connection either through their mobile phones or
through the cyber cafes or through home broadband connections. However, they may become ‘items’ for
discussion in the local business junctions, pubs and clubs if their images are made
available for public viewing. No one
will actually come over to compensate them or fight for them because they may
never be made aware of these as well. However, if the law agencies do come to
know about the issue, hopefully actions can be taken against the people
involved in the racket right from the kingpin to the children who may have been
‘employed’ by such people to do the ground work. Most likely prescribed penalty
could be either a jail term for three years or a fine or both as has been
described in S.66E of the Information Technology Act, 2008, or a jail term for
three years or five years minimum with a fine, as prescribed by Ss. 67 or 67A
of the Information Technology Act or S.354C of the Indian Penal code depending
upon the nature of the offence as understood from the images and its effects. The
issue of involvement of children may further attract questions of right to protection
of children from such crimes as well as duty of the State to prevent the
children from getting involved in such acts through various legal provisions.
Who remains unprotected without getting any
notion of ‘equality’? Nonetheless these innocent poor women who may be again subjected
to such acts by a fresh group of youngsters mentored by some other porn
industry rackets. I feel time has come
to teach not only the children, but also their parents about the possible
misuse of gadgets by their children and to stop providing ‘soft corner’ for
children’s unreasonable demands for
smart phones even if it is a gift for getting excellent marks in the exams.
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. (2014), “Equality for women
still a dream ?” Published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
