Showing posts with label domestic violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domestic violence. Show all posts

Sunday, November 1, 2009

ONLINE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: THE LAWYER SPEAKS

I DEDICATE THIS BLOG TO ALL THOSE ABUSED WOMEN WHOSE EX SPOUSES TAKE INTERNET AS A BATTLING GROUND


Couple of months back there were some flash news of online domestic violence : as how spouses take it to the internet to make it a big fight. Most of these spouses are separated but the bitterness still lingers on. Women in the internet are now poor victims of spousal violence which has a grater effect than online harassment. How does the ex-husband target the woman? I was reading some articles on cyber psychology which were published in 2000-01. I got to know that these spouses keep on stalking the ex wives.The email ids are first targets as these men would probably know very well which was the most used email id of their victim/s.In most cases, the abusive spouse would keep on leaving *disturbing* messages in her email inbox , just to provoke her to appear in the verbal duel online.Once the victim looses her patience , the harasser wins and then starts the battle of words. in extreme cases , the abuser even starts posting his victim's pictures and informations for getting more abusive comments from this big bad internet world.The abuser also starts to defame the victim by reaching her friends and leaving filthy messages about her. The game continues even in the social networking websites also. Well.. some times it becomes nothing but beating the bush as women prefer to hide under different screen names in the social networking websites.But this generally doesn't demotivate the abusive ex spouse to search thousands of namesakes of his victim and finally he gets it .. or rather her.. Abusing ex wives is more easy in the social networking websites as the huge audience gets a live news feed when the abuser posts any ugly message about the victim either in her own message box or in other individual's message box.The victim is harassed, defamed and publicly insulted. She may even go for deep traumatic experience. But the question is what do the harasser get by insulting his ex wife publicly? nothing , but mental satisfaction and he feels the world is sympathizing with him. WELL SORRY TO SAY.. NO ONE SYMPATHIZES WITH AN ABUSER . THE INTERNET AUDIENCE ENJOYS THE VERBAL BATTLE AND THEN WITHDRAWS THEIR ATTENTION BECAUSE BY THEN THE HARASSER HAS COMMITTED A HUGE CRIME OF ONLINE DEFAMATION AND STALKING WHICH NO LAW OF ANY COUNTRY FORGIVES.
My friend Mokshda, who specializes on domestic violence laws , opines that online domestic violence or harassing the ex spouses can be a severe crime. The US law specifically tags it as a crime under the Violence against women re authorization Act 2005; similarly the Canadian Penal Code and the Charter of rights and freedoms of Canada addresses online defamation, stalking and harassment of victims of domestic violence as a severe crime.Many provincial laws of Canada are being formulated to prevent stalking as part of domestic violence.However, the laws need to strengthened more to address the specific problem.
But law can only punish the abuser, what happens to the poor women who had already gone through the storm and get to see another huge wave again? The police can nab the abuser , the law can prevent him from such types of socializing any more.It is the women , the victims who have to bear the pain.Can you imagine what may happen to a victim in this condition when she has to parent her child single handedly? How much pressure she may have to go through to suppress her pain, anger , frustration , desperation to live life as it comes. No , it is not the abuser who can be told to stop , because the demon in him would never allow him to stop, but you and me can stop this abuse of internet by simply banning such atrocious actions in the cyber space.Do not pay attention to the abuser and his foolish ways of letting people know how much inhuman he can be. If you get to see one message of such kind, block the sender from sending further such messages. Delete the message and let the world know you don't allow yourself to be an element of harassment for others.