‘Age no bar for victimisation of women in cyberspace’
Social media companies should evolve a mechanism to curb online harassment, says DGP. Stresses on sensitisation of lawyers, students and common man
LUCKNOW : Age doesn’t matter when it comes to women’s vulnerability in the cyber space. Be it teens, college girls, married or middle-aged women, housewives or working women, cyber harassment or bullying is a major concern for all age groups, suggests a recent status report released by Women Power Line (WPL) 1090 here on Saturday.
The data of 12,850 complaints of cyber harassment out of total 10, 63,470 complaints of different nature registered with the WPL is ample illustration of this. While the largest number (31%) of victims who registered complaints related to cyber harassment was women aged between 20-25 years, 21% of them were between 15-20 years,
18% between 25-30 years and 17% between 30-40 years. Surprisingly, about 6% of the victims were between 40-50 years, 3% were over 50 years of age, 1% below 15 years and 3% from unspecified groups.
The percentage was calculated on the number of complaints registered between January and October this year. The status reported was released by the WPL in presence of UP director general of police (DGP) OP Singh during the one-day National Stakeholders’ Conference on Cyber Bullying of Women, organised by WPL in collaboration with Unicef. Senior judge of Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court justice Vikram Nath was the chief guest at the inaugural session of the conference.
The status report also revealed that maximum 53 % of victims of cyber harassment were non-working, 33 % students, 12% working women and 2 % from unspecified category.
“The society blames girls for their attire, behaviour and profession when they complain about abuse and harassment. But people must know that age and profession are no bar. When non-working women and women of all age groups can be victims, then anybody can fall prey to cyber harassers,” said additional DG of WPL Anju Gupta during the first session.
DGP OP Singh said the figures and findings of the status report should be considered by the police in charting out plans for a safer society for women. He said the findings suggested that cyber bullying of women occurred on every social platform so representatives from social media were equally responsible for developing an internal mechanism to curb such activities.
The status report revealed that maximum 44% of cyber bullying was reported on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and 38% on WhatsApp. Moreover, Twitter and Rediff had 3 % of share while 5% of such cases were reported on Google, Youtube and other mobile applications.
The DGP said the UP police would recommend suggestions to social media companies to form some frame work to curb cyber harassment of women. “We are also focused on capacity building of our police personnel to handle such cases. Moreover, sensitisation of other stakeholders like lawyers, students and common man is equally necessary,” he said.
The WPL’s figures suggest that the complaints of cyber harassment are increasing every month. The helpline, which received nearly 441 complaints in January 2018, registered nearly 12,407 complaints in October, 2018 alone. The data suggested that the maximum complaints of cyber harassment from 2,551 women were received in September and lowest number of 370 complaints were received in February earlier this year.
In 2017, the total number of cyber harassment complaints made to the WPL was merely 3,990.
Launched on November 15, 2012, the WPL is a devoted helpline for women in distress.