Do not mess with your wife through cyber space; it could lead to divorce

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Marriages are made in heaven, but divorces may not be made only in the real space. People have found cyber space a perfect platform to express views about others and this may also include ridiculous humiliation of women, including one’s own wife. Truly, off late I have been noticing many ego clashes and typical domestic quarrels taking place through online chats and emails. Not very long ago a Muslim wife was declared legally divorced by the Shariat (Islamik law) when her husband conveyed the word “talaq” three times through online chat (see “Talaq joke during  internet chat may cost youth his marriage”(2010,October,27) in msn news. Retrieved on 25.12.2010 from http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4508570). The write up claims that the husband had unknowingly used the devastating word and that brought the marriage to an abrupt end. But Shariat is not the only legal source to punish such thoughtless idiotic communications which takes toll on marriages. The definition of domestic violence under section 5 of the Protection of women from Domestic Violence Act,2005, may also be cited as one of the preventive legal provisions which bars usage of humiliating, insulting words by husband or relative/s of husband against the victim woman. This law strengthens protection of women from verbal abuse hurled by their men especially when such verbal abuses are carried out by any means including the digital medium.

Sadly enough, in India, many educated men have taken to verbally abusing their wives over their work place designation, relationship with colleagues, child bearing capacity, attitude to their families and homes etc.  This is especially because these men do understand that physical violence over their wives may mar their own reputation as educated, matured and modern young husbands. Hence verbal abuse through internet could be the most sorted after way to express anger and frustration over the marriage relationship. If the  Supreme Court judgments over the grounds of divorce are analyzed in light of digital era, it could be seen that such via-internet mess up may include conveying insulting, humiliating words to the wife through online chat, emails, message box etc, spreading ridiculous messages about the wife to friends and acquaintances, creating fake profiles to irritate the wife etc.

No wonder, women also take to internet to abuse their husbands. Many anti-domestic violence law activists have rightly pointed out that the broad provisions of this Act supporting women almost blindly, may be misused by many women against innocent men. I do support them partly. But in a traditional patriarchal society like India once a woman’s reputation is destroyed by her husband, it is none other than the woman herself who has to suffer the brunt of the “mistake” of her husband. Cyber space must not create the war-zone between the husband and wife. Once it is turned in to so, even the law of the land may also not save the marriage.

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. (2010), “Do not mess with your wife through cyber space; it could lead to divorce”, 27^th December,  2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Is your (virtual) boyfriend goading you to show yourself nude? Beware! He might be a cyber sex-addict.

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Very recently I opened an account in MySpace with a gender neutral name to get some more friends. As usual of the cyber trend, I received couple of messages from men and women and when I clicked on the women’s profiles I felt I have wrongly clicked on some porno site. All those girls who sent me requests braved to show their nude body parts, some could have very well be fitted as advertisements for stylish inner wears  for girls, some had smoky eyes, some wore decent dresses but maintained a “breast line” for their hemline to show off their cleavages. Some had low hip jeans pants which ended almost immediately where they begun. Well, I did receive request from men too; some had amazing six packs like movie stars, some had wonderful tattoos on their strong arms, some were again modeling for men’s under wears  and some had very decent dresses on them but the tagline told me they are mischievously decent. Well, this happens with every new user of social networking sites. Women users may get to see many male profile owners who are “really interested” in having a “relationship”. Beware if such profiles show a host of female friends who may have “sexy” profile screen names or sexually explicit pictures like women in bikini, in see-through lingerie, or women showing only nude breasts or groin or parts of these nude body parts. No genuine user would create such profiles in social networking sites specially made for all age groups for socializing. Either these profiles are impersonated profiles or are created for completely adult entertainments. Mostly men, who display such friend-list, suffer from addiction to cyber sex. This term represents a conglomeration of sexual activities including masturbation by getting high level sexual arousal after viewing the sexually arousing images/audio/video movie clippings etc.(see  Cybersex. (2010, December 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:19, December 18, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cybersex&oldid=401497743). If befriended, such men can ask the female friend to come over for live video chat or show her pictures or can even ask for showing nude body parts like bare shoulders, cleavages, size of the waist, naval, the colour of the bra or even panties. Well, the man may not ask these things right at the beginning of the chat or socializing, but he may slowly gain the confidence, and then groom the victim to fulfill his emotional and sexual needs and finally go ahead with these “demands”. If the demands are not fulfilled, the ‘good friend’ can even turn a real ‘hard nut’ who can misuse the previously captured images or personal pictures of the victim that are shared with him.

In India, the recent Bombay High Court judgment about viewing of pornography in private places as a personal right (see http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_bombay-high-court-says-no-to-blanket-ban-on-porn-websites_1357395) may really put such cyber sex addicted people in an advantageous position and the victim may have really nothing to do except repenting over her decision to allow this ‘friend’ to ‘watch’ her for his satisfaction. Hence be careful when choosing a virtual boyfriend. Remember “prevention is better than cure”.

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. (2010), “Is your (virtual) boyfriend goading you to show yourself nude? Beware! He might be a cyber sex-addict”, 18^th December,  2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Match making sites ………do they really match?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of years back one of my friends had a tiff off with her boyfriend and she decided to take revenge in a unique way…….she created a profile in a matrimonial site with a fictitious name and bio to show her boyfriend how much in demand she is still now.  Fortunately she was wise enough not to give her own personal details except her good old granny’s phone number which she often used as a ‘spare number’ . In no time, her inbox was flooded with proposals asking her to send her picture immediately. Some were from the prospective grooms; some were from the parents of ‘boys’. She played a trick. She chose one proposal from a prospective groom who described himself ‘good looking’, ‘in his thirties’, ‘caring’, ‘well paid’ and ‘only son of parents’. She fixed up an appointment with this Mr. Handsome in a public place (well, she knew it was a ‘game’ so she dared not to see him in a restaurant or a ‘lover’s corner’). He obviously exhibited a very charming picture in his profile page and he indicated that he would be in ‘pink’ shirt as my friend loved that soothing colour. She reached the place in time and hid herself in the crowd to keep a watch on this Mr. Pink. There he appeared, gave a message to her mobile about the exact place where he is standing and told he is eagerly waiting to see his lovely would be bride.; he was medium built, half bald, had a good bulging belly. My friend probably guessed all these. She came back, changed her number and withdrew her profile from the site..........Both of them were not right and my friend promised that never again she would play such tricks...... and perhaps the man was a habitual 'flirt'.

This is not a new story for many readers…..isn’t it?  Cheating through matrimonial sites has become very common phenomena now days. Although the sites do caution the viewer about reliability of the informations provided by the account creators, many parents rely on the face value of the profile holders than the real value of their daughter’s life. At the same time,  I also know another friend of mine who is now leading a blissful married life due to matrimonial site…she chose her husband from the matrimonial site herself after having a thorough investigation done by her friends and acquaintances and finally she even dropped in herself with her parents to check the reality.

            Marriages through online matchmakers really have a 50-50 chance especially when one does not search properly. Internet has given a platform to create numerous avatars of oneself and it has indeed become very easy to cheat. I have noticed that there are sockets which can easily pull the ‘ignorant’ participant/s to the vicious web; these are as follows:

Anxiousness of  parents who want their daughters to get married by hook or crook;

Eagerness to get ‘foren’ bridegrooms;

Presumption that the ‘boy’ really earns and owns a good fortune;

The peculiar Indian mindset that ‘looks really don’t matter for men when they can feed their wives well and look after them comfortably’;

Lack of awareness about the dangerous ‘side effects’ of internet match-makings.

Some may argue……what is so special to talk negatively about internet matchmaking when people can be cheated in offline real life match making too……Well, there IS some thing to talk about. There are always chances that the girl’s personal informations and pictures are misused and her reputation is so much jeopardized that she may never be considered as a ‘good girl’ in the marriage market. What pains me more is, these innocent victims become heavily depressed and withdrawn for some mischievous activities of others.

            Well, the good news is, in India, we do have good laws both under Indian Penal code and also under Information Technology Act which can nail the charlatan. Both these laws can be applied to book the mischief monger under sections dealing with cheating and impersonating primarily and also under provisions which safeguard one’s privacy, reputation etc. But the bad news is,  suing  the matrimonial sites may not be fruitful for the fraudulent activities of the fake ‘prospective groom’, as they enjoy  immunity from this very liability (especially when they have  already exercised due diligence).

Hence the only way to be safe when going for matchmaking through internet is, to search and research and then refresh the search.

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. (2010), “Match making sites ………do they really match?”,October  2010, published in  http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/