DNA Special: Cybercrime against women at its peak, close to 60 percent women victims of online abuse

Cybercrime against women is becoming a huge problem. According to a report by the United Nations, about 35 percent of the women in the world are victims of some kind of violence. And what is more appalling is that about 60 percent of women across the world have faced some kind of a threat on social media.

Violence on social media leads to extreme mental agony for women. About 20 per cent of cybercrime victims are forced to shut down their online accounts.

The survey has been conducted among more than 14 thousand women from 22 countries, including India. The age of the women included in the survey was between 15 and 25 years. According to this survey, 39 percent of women have faced online violence on Facebook, while the number of women who have been victims of violence on Instagram is 23 percent. Online violence through WhatsApp against women is 14 while 10 percent women face violence on Snapchat. About 9 percent women Twitter users and 6 percent Tik Tok users have witnessed violence of some kind or the other.

In the same year, a survey conducted in Delhi and nearby cities revealed that violence against women on the Internet increased by 36 percent. While the punishment rate in cases of online violence has come down from 40 percent to 25 percent.

Even if abuse is happening on a virtual platform, it is just as dangerous as violence in real life. According to a survey by a website called Via sat Savings.Com, due to online abuse, 74 percent women on Facebook have to block someone or something. This number is even higher when it comes to Instagram.

Due to increasing cases of online violence and molestation, about 59 percent of the women now prefer to keep their social media accounts private. 

This does not end here, according to a report carried out by an international website, online violence is highest among women aged between 18 and 30 years. The report further states, Facebook is responsible for 26 percent of incidents of online violence. About 19 percent of online violence incidents are carried out through mobile phones. But surprisingly, only 33 percent of the cases of online violence are taken up by the service provider and only 41 percent of the cases are reported to the authorities.

How social media has become the new hub of crime against women is worrisome. You can imagine the situation in the real world. Recently we have come across several such incidents in our own country. The Hathras case is a media headline today, but there are many such incidents that go unreported.

Several news channels are constantly showing news about the incident in Hathras, but rape case in different cities of Balrampur and Rajasthan are not been spoken about. 

In such a situation, the question arises as to why so much attention to the Hathras case? Why the leaders and media who went to Hathras, 200 km from Delhi, could not go to Balrampur, 500 km from Hathras?

Again social media is the answer to this. There has been extreme misuse of this platform in the Hathras case by spreading misinformation. The incident began to trend on social media and was later picked up by news channels that could not decipher the fake news.

Why the Balrampur incident was not discussed like Hathras is clear from the affidavit the Uttar Pradesh government filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The affidavit claims that rumours were spread through social media, and some print and electronic media. It said some political organizations were planning ethnic violence and riots.

The affidavit also clarified that the last rites of the victim were done at night because intelligence inputs were received that there is a plan to carry out protests and violence. There was the possibility of several people gathering at the spot in the morning.

It is not about comparing incidents of crime but stressing the need to treat all crimes against women as serious. And in order to achieve this governments, society and the media need to be on the same page