Honour finds a new medium online
Women form a very miniscule fraction of the 32 million users of the internet in Pakistan. Those who surpass the cultural equivalent of handcuffs because they cannot be mobile enough to access internet cafes, then face another monstrous challenge — cyber harassment. It cuts all class, race and socio-economic status lines and unites all women in terms of its victimisation. Any woman online is fair game because she has dared to form an independent identity, either on Facebook or Twitter, or even at a more basic level, signed up for Gmail.
Forms of cyber harassment are as many as a breakfast buffet in a five-star hotel. Harassment ranges from character assassinations, impersonations, personal threats to women and their families, online identity thefts to downright vulgarity. Women do not need to do anything to be attacked and stalked, but this doesn’t prevent them from being blamed by society once they are trapped.
If the NGO Bytes for All’s report “Technology Driven Violence Against Women” is to be believed, the problem is dire; has caused honour killings and suicides alike; and have affected almost all women at some point of their online life. At the event to commemorate the launch of the report, many women spoke up. One woman had her personal property documents uploaded online; another’s children were under psychological stress because their mother was called insulting names on Twitter; and yet another had to close down all her online identities.
No support was extended to these women by any organisation, from law enforcement to the judiciary. If there are any laws present, they have no teeth. According to a government-owned forensics lab official, forensics to find perpetrators cannot be run because there are no back-up generators to power the lab.
Women are fighting as individuals, and as victims, they have even less worth in what is now a highly misogynistic society. This is where organisations such as Bytes for All play a part in first gathering evidence, lobbying and then advocating a substantive change in awarding justice to women, who face online harassment.
The worst targets are women with opinions. Lawyer and criminologist, Humaira Masihuddin talked about how a friend was stalked by people, who turned out to be terrorists. Renowned opinion-maker and columnist, Marvi Sirmed discussed the systemic harassment she has faced and the psychological stress it caused her. It is women like her that make the grain-sized space for women online to grow and expand.
The worst message we can give to Pakistani women is one of callous disregard for the epidemic of online harassment that thwarts their drive to achieve and more importantly, thrive. They need to know, both from the government and civil society, that there is going to be a push-back against invisible misogynists, religious fanatics and political fascists.
If Malala had been a prominent online blogger, she would have been silenced by the barrage of cynics and naysayers before the world discovered her. We would have cut our Nobel winners count by half. In a situation where women trust the online world like one would trust a public toilet in a public hospital, there is very little hope for women to develop skills to progress.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2014.
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Second attempt at a comment : There is a plus side and a minus side especially to something like what you have written about. In my view the plus side outweighs the minus side. But this phenomena dates way back before the advent of this technology and as a matter of fact technology has given women a platform in itself to counter this. Small example : Recently a known TV personality bad mouthed Malala.....a lady who never uses the social media sites except to read.......broke her silence and hammered the guy into the ground.....impressive and one must thank the smartphone for that.
Well written, we need to protect and encourage the women who come online to express their views. As a society we are regressing day by day by becoming more and more intolerant. The only way to fight this intolerance is through all of us raising their voice to condemn it.