Couple of days back I received a friends request on
FaceBook from a male profile whom I do not know either personally or through
any of my networks. But the profile was apparently very impressing : the man
was an alumni of Oxford University , works in Mercedes Benz company and he is
better looking than the average. From my
experience as a cybercrime victim counsellor , lawyer and a cyber right
activist for more than a decade now I
could understand that this may be one of many fake profiles that are created to
allure women (and not necessarily young
girls) to trap them and victimize them through online and offline crimes including
sexual crimes. It is an obvious phenomena now that women, especially educated
women are using social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc for expanding
their network for various purposes including
Job searching, getting connected with like-minded people, expanding their
research network , volunteering for social causes etc.
In the recently held #Webwonderwomen award ceremony in
Delhi, the Ministry of Women and Child affairs awarded 30 women including myself
the #Webwonderwomen award for positively using social media (especially
Twitter), spreading awareness about the social causes they are working on and
their real life support for women empowerment all across India. It was a joint
initiative of Ministry of Women and Child affairs, Twitter and Breakthrough India.
My fellow awardees work in different fields of public health, women’s health, right
to breast feeding, women empowerment, journalism especially for the causes of
women, proper nutrition for women, education for women and girls especially in
socio-economically backward sectors of the society, empowering women of all age
group from socio-economically backward sectors about their rights against domestic violence,
sexual reproduction rights etc. All of
them could actually make their journey stronger because of positive use of
social media. I too have been using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc to get connected with people who have become my knowledge partners,
mentors and friends in the field of law and policy especially for Cyber
Victimology, Cyber law for women, Cyber Criminology, Revenge Porn, Non
consensual porn, Women’s Rights, Child
Rights, Criminal law, Penology, Therapeutic Jurisprudence etc.
It would not have been possible for me reach to the world about my work including
my pro bono work without social media and the friends that I have made. I
consider myself privileged to have 24 hours access to internet and a platform where I can share my opinion
bravely, gather information without any fear and build a reputation. Some of my fellow awardees could win this award staying in remote places
because they are well connected with the world through internet and social
media. Internet as such has given a
platform to earn money in a positive way too. Consider thousands of women who
make daily/weekly/monthly Vlogs and
upload it on Youtube . They have their recognition as “Youtuber” and YouTube
duly recognizes their “popularity” (marketability) by awarding and rewarding them.
But still then, internet is not safe for women. The Pollachi
case proved it again. Pollachi is the
second largest town in Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu. This place is famous for its world famous jaggery market and beautiful lush green agricultural
fields. One would actually not imagine that this can be a center for news on
cyber crimes against women, but it has now surfaced because of a brave young
woman who had lodged a complaint against the smart gang of men who had been “enjoying”
sex by way of connecting with women through fake profiles (mostly of women),
grooming them to enter into chats and sharing more details, turning the chats
into typical sex chats and then alluring them to come and meet in person. In my
book Cyber crimes against women in India (coauthored with prof(Dr) Jaishankar, Halder D., &
Jaishankar K. (November 2016). Cyber Crime against Women in India. New Delhi:
SAGE. ISBN: 978-93-859857-7-5.) I had discussed about such kinds of grooming
and consequent victimization of women and this can be shown through the flow
chart as below:
 |
| Image created by Dr.Debarati Halder |
This brave
woman was sexually harassed , molested and assaulted when she went to meet the
so called ‘friends’, who had been doing this to many women, recording their sexual
assault in their phones and threatening them to leak the clippings if they dare
to refuse their demands or to go to the police. The police has now arrested all
the four members of the gang applying provisions including Ss. 354A, B of the
Indian Penal Code , S.66E of the Information technology Act and S.4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of harassment of women’s
Act. [1].
Let us see what do these provisions say and whether these Sections may play a pivotal role in
delivering justice to women victims such as this brave heart:
S. 354A of the IPC says
(1) “A man committing any of the following acts—
(i) physical
contact and advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures;
(ii) or a demand or request for sexual favours;
(iii)or showing pornography against the will of a
woman;
(iv) or making sexually coloured remarks, shall be
guilty of the offence of sexual harassment.
(2) Any man who commits the offence specified in
clause (i) or clause (ii) or clause (iii) of sub-section (1) shall be punished
with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with
fine, or with both.
Any man who commits the offence specified in clause
(iv) of sub-section (1) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description
for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.
S.354 B of the Indian Penal Code states that
“Any man who assaults or uses criminal force to any
woman or abets such act with the intention of disrobing or compelling her to be
naked, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which
shall not be less than three years but which may extend to seven years, and
shall also be liable to fine.”.
S.66E of the Information technology Act 2000 (amended
in 2008) states as follows:
Punishment for violation of privacy. -Whoever,
intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a
private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances
violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment which
may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding two lakh rupees, or with
both. Explanation. -For the purposes of this section-
(a) "transmit" means to electronically send
a visual image with the intent that it be viewed by a person or persons;
(b) "capture", with respect to an image,
means to videotape, photograph, film or record by any means;
(c) "private area" means the naked or
undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast;
(d) "publishes" means reproduction in the
printed or electronic form and making it available for public; e) "under
circumstances violating privacy" means circumstances in which a person can
have a reasonable expectation that;-
(i) he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being
concerned that an image of his private area was being captured; or
(ii) any part of his or her private area would not be
visible to the public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or
private place.
Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment
Act states as follows:
Penalty for harassment of woman: Whoever commits or
participates in or abets harassment of woman in or within the precincts of any
educational institution, temple or other place of worship, bus stop, road,
railway station, cinema theatre, park, beach, place of festival, public service
vehicle or vessel or any other place shall be punished with imprisonment for a
term which may extend to three years and with fine which shall not be less than
ten thousand rupees."
Noticeably, this provision may have been used for punishing the accused for committing the crime in the "specific place"; for secluding the victim from her 'comfort zone' where she could have raised an alarm for help and committing the crime in a place which may be a public place or a moving vehicle from where the victim may not escape easily.
The other news report suggested that the District
Collector had ordered for detention of the accused under Goondas Act
(officially known as Tamil Nadu Prevention of
Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug offenders, Goondas, Immoral
traffic offenders, Sand offenders, Slum grabbers, and Video pirates Act, 1985)
.[2]
In my earlier blog I had explained how Goondas Act can be relevant in cyber
offences by stating that this law can be very relevant especially where crimes including
committing or attempting to commit extortion of money , threatening for the
same, cheating, etc are involved.[3]
However, I have not seen any news report indicating
that S.67A of the Information Technology Act (amended in 2008) was used for
booking of the offences or not. This Section speaks about Punishment for publishing or transmitting of
material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form and says “Whoever
publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted in the
electronic form any material which contains sexually explicit act or conduct
shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description
for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to ten
lakh rupees and in the event of second or subsequent conviction with
imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years
and also with fine which may extend to ten lakh rupees”. It does not
necessarily speak about creating such content by clicking the images and this
has to be inferred from the provision itself. However, this lacuna has been
partly covered by S.66E of the Information technology Act which speaks about
violating the privacy of any individual.
Clearly, this is not a case of revenge porn, but a
case of non consensual porn especially when the accused persons would have
stored the clipping of sexual assault of the woman concerned with an intention of visual sexual gratification through the clipping/s and also to use it for future threatening or creating/producing sexually explicit contents on internet . But unfortunately
the laws are still handicapped in this regard when it comes to grooming and
sextortion. There is no law which may holistically cover the whole issue of
grooming women for sexual gratification , which is narrowly addressed in the
POCSO Act. Here lies the major lacuna which may have motivated many for victim blaming.
Women like Pollachi brave heart would not have created
“virtual friendship” with another unknown man or woman unless the perpetrator
would have customized the fake profile to gain trust. This could have been done
by thorough data mining about the victim/s.
apparently the victims of this gang were adult women including doctors,
teachers etc. Such perpetrators look for their prey from social media profiles
who may have not taken full precautions to protect their albums, posts, friend
lists and above all the email ids and/or the phone numbers which
are used for accessing social media through phones. This ignorance may
invite major risks as this particular case. However, social media site is also
to be blamed for not monitoring the creation of fake profiles which they would
not necessarily scan unless someone reports the profile as fake.
This case should have a happy ending and this can be
possible only when this particular victim and other victims of this gang cooperate
with the prosecution till the end and the police uses its legal power to
extract all evidences from the social media website. We as civil society
members are also responsible to make a happy ending of this case : please do
not circulate the images of the victim/s if in case you are conveyed the images
from any number, profile etc. Such circulation would also attract penal
provisions against the person who may not be directly involved in the case, but
may circulate it thinking that it is “fun” to circulate such images, or he/she
is doing the same to make the society aware that such crimes have happened. We
all should respect the privacy of the victims and at the same time praise the
victims for breaking social taboo and
reporting the matter to the police.
Stop cybercrimes against women. Start positive usage
of social media .
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),
Duping women in the name of matured
friendship: The Pollachi sextortion case " 12th March, 2019 , published in
http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
[1] See
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/pollachi-woman-harassment-case-four-detained-under-goondas-act/articleshow/68370291.cms
Retrieved on 12.03.2019
[3] For better understanding see “Halder
D. (2012), “Law to regulate cyber goons”, 20th December,2012, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/2012/12/law-to-regulate-cyber-goons.html
Accessed on 11.03.2019
