A year ago, a young woman engineer at Technopark, found herself being bombarded by someone with abusive, vulgar messages on Facebook and on the phone.
When she threatened him with legal action, he laughed it off, and dared her. At her wit’s end, the woman wanted to file a police complaint, but her parents disapproved. It would tarnish her reputation, they thought, and advised her to bail herself out of social media.
“They were eager to blame the platform rather than address the issue of abuse. Any legal recourse, for them, would be a blot on their daughter’s marital prospects. It’s just a miniscule percentage of online abuse survivors who steadfastly file complaints and see them to their logical conclusion. An astonishing 89 per cent of respondents refused to seek police help in bringing the attackers to book,” maintains Nandakishore Harikumar, chief operating officer of reputation management and data mining firm GOIS Software Labs, which has recently held a survey on online abuse faced by women across Kerala.
The Kochi-based firm obtained responses from 100 dynamic women online users across professions (doctors, engineers, teachers, etc) and in the 25-35 age group over the past four months for the survey. In its wake, informal parleys were held by the survey team members with male online users aged between 15 and 21 — as most abusers were found to be from this age group — to gauge what they thought of active women online users.
Sexist remarks
The survey revealed that 56 per cent of women face sexist remarks online. While just about 12 per cent of women online users are well-versed with legal recourses, 22 per cent are moderately aware of the provisions and another 22 per cent somewhat aware.
A good 16 per cent do not have any inkling of the legal provisions against online abuse of women. “But the fact is that, even among those that are acutely aware of the legal channels, hardly a percentage takes the legal route. Lack of support from family and discouragement on the part of law enforcing agencies also dissuade them from seeking legal recourse,” says Mr. Harikumar.
Online stalking
Facebook (89 per cent), mobile phone (83 per cent) and Whatsapp (50 per cent) are the most common channels of abuse, stalking and harassment and nearly 46 per cent of women have uneasy memories of being stalked online.
Most attackers (64 per cent) are absolute strangers who target women at random, but a fairly large number of attacks (18 per cent) have emanated from strained relationships in personal life and at workplace.
If it was pure sexual harassment (55 per cent) in most cases, 49 per cent of attacks came from men whose love interest was unreciprocated.
Game of chance
“When we interacted with male online users aged between 15 and 21, most of them thought it was cool to stalk women online or seek sexual favours. They don’t take it as a crime. And, nearly 70 per cent of them thought that women who are articulate and fashionable would be ‘available’. It’s a game of chance that they play — which points to the dire need to train boys at a fairly young age to respect women on and offline. Parents and school can a play a major role in this,” points out Mr. Harikumar.
The firm is contemplating submitting the survey to government with recommendations for affirmative action. “At least 28 per cent of respondents felt that the laws are not powerful to punish the aggressors while complicated procedures and the lack of a friendly system dissuaded 27 per cent from filing complaints,” he says.
TIME TO SPEAK UP
Facebook, mobile phone and Whatsapp most common channels of abuse
Only 12 per cent of women online users are well-versed with legal recourses
Most attackers (64%) are absolute strangers who target women at random
