Muggu

 

Sexual Harassment through the smartphone

 Police arrested some youth in Ballia because they had filmed a gang rape of minor girl & it had become viral.  This shows how insensitive we have become that we can film such acts instead of helping the victim .The fact ,that this act went viral shows something else ...a majority of us are indulging in sadism.We seem to take pleasure in watching others in pain. 

 

Smartphones are being increasingly used to film all such crimes & then they go viral as smartphones can easily transmit these video clips to various social media platforms like facebook, twitter, whatsapp .Moreover, the porn sites will pay for such video clips. 

 

Prajwala’s founder & anti trafficking crusader , Sunitha Krishnan ,is of the opinion that smartphones are used to film such acts because the perpetrators want to exhibit their acts or rather their crimes . In India, the woman has to bear the brunt of rapes & molestation, eve teasing etc. while  the perpetrators roam around looking for new victims. In our nation, the public believes that the girl or woman is herself responsible for having been raped or molested or eve teased. The man ( or men )   who did it did so because he ( they or )  was ( or were )  aided & abetted & encouraged by acts of commission & omission by the victims. In other words, the character assassination of the victim is is relentless while the perpetrators are projected as ideal persons. 

 

Sunitha Krishnan had filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2014 as she had been tipped in this regard about smartphones being used to forward such videos thereby making them viral. The Supreme Court directed that CBI to  investigate these crimes. Sunitha Krishnan launched the #ShametheRapist Campaign.The trauma of the victims or survivors increases exponentially  as each such share through social media shames them, more & more. And they are silenced  . Moreover, justice takes a long time in India to reach fruition even after fast track courts have been established as Nirbhaya verdict came after seven long years of waiting. And that too ,because there was tremendous public pressure .

 

The shame is also one of the many reasons why many times , the victim is coerced & raped repeatedly .And many men join, turn by turn in raping the victims because once she has been raped, she can be raped again because she has been numbed by the video going viral. Because as Bishakha Datta ,executive director of Point of View ( non profit organisation that works for women & other genders )  opines  that the body of survivor is public property & so can be abused by many more in repeated ways. It is as if a lifetime of silence is imposed on the victims as opined by Sunitha Krishnan.And sometimes, the victims have to pay up.

 

And this transmission is so easy that sometimes a person may be bullied, coerced &  shamed by sharing photos & videos though these photos and videos are not in the public domain. Hence, the platforms wherein such videos were posted also need to be taken to task .

There were many such videos on sale in Uttar Pradesh in 2016 .And going by the spate of rapes being reported in many States , it does appear that more & more rapes are being filmed & circulated all over India.

 

The Supreme Court has formed a panel to stop such videos in the wake of Sunitha Krishnan’s petition in this regard. And the panel will have representatives of Google India, Yahoo India, Microsoft India s also Facebook as these platforms need to be held accountable for the content which gets posted on them.

Moreover ,cyber crime is not easily solvable in India because of obvious reasons.Firstly ,  the evidence may have been erased before the investigation begins. And police in India lack training regarding cyber crimes & even the equipment to trace the origins & the trail of the cyber crime is extremely difficult.

 

 In 2018 alone, 2000 cases of sexual harassment & 700 cases of online bullying have been reported. The good thing, is that this high number is because now ,people are aware of cyber crimes. Of course, there are umpteen cases which never get filed because the victims have been numbed by the said criminal acts going viral .Another plus point is that the Government in 2018, has launched a portal called the National Cyber Crime Reporting portal for recording complaints online. Police have been trained in digital crimes as also public has been made aware of cyber crimes. 

The public must delete such videos from their devices once they come across such content. The members of the public must be able to complain anonymously to the police about such videos getting viral as suggested by Sunitha Krishnan. 

 

Another aspect as pointed out by Bisakha Datta  is that the relevant sections of IT act needs to be invoked to nail the accused .Then only, will the perpetrators understand that cyber crimes pay back with exemplary punishment. And last but not the least , cyber crimes must be routed through fast track courts as technology upgrades faster than human actions, commissions  & omissions .