Pakistan‘s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) says that 20 percent of the daily complaints received by its cybercrime wing are related to cyber-harassment.
of the institution Cybercrime Ayesha Agha, Additional Director of the Wing in Lahore, told Independent Urdu that ‘From Lahore alone, we receive about 70 to 80 different cybercrime complaints a day, in which the most number of complaints are around 20 to 25. It is cyber harassment.’
Sexual harassment and then releasing it on social media Cyber Harassment An incident recently happened in Lodhran district where the principal of a government school sexually assaulted a student of the school and made a video of it and made it viral on social media.
Lodhran Police Spokesperson Khan Bahadur told Independent Urdu that an FIR has been registered against the victim’s father and the principal of the school has also been arrested.
He said that the principal is also accused of having done the same to female teachers of the school before. However, further investigations in this regard are still ongoing.
In the FIR of the incident, the plaintiff has stated that his daughter, who is 22, 23 years old, has been teaching in a government school since 2018 and the principal Ghulam Mustafa has played with the honor of innocent girls and school officials. .’
In the FIR, he said that his daughter (the victim’s name is not being recorded) was also sexually abused by the principal and a video was also made of it.
The plaintiff further wrote that her daughter initially kept quiet to save her honor and did not tell me anything, but now the accused has made the video viral and her daughter has told her everything.
It is also stated in the FIR that while committing the crime, the accused was accompanied by two unknown persons, one of whom took a video of him while the other kept guard at the door.
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The plaintiff also alleged that the accused had also sexually abused other women but they also remained silent for the sake of their dignity.
In this regard, the central cybercrime wing of FIA could not be provided with the data of cyber harassment of the entire country despite several contacts and reminders.
When Independent Arud contacted the FIA Cyber Crime Wing Lahore, Additional Director Ayesha Agha said that in such incidents, the punishment of the accused depends on the complainant. In most of such cases, the complainant is a woman and we have seen mostly that the women victims, under the pressure of society and parents, back down and do not pursue the case.’
According to Ayesha Agha: ‘In such cases, when the statements are being recorded in the court, the questions asked by the complainant cause further embarrassment for them. On such occasion, the court proceedings are not tolerated by the complainant and their parents due to which the plaintiffs withdraw in most of the cases.’
According to Ayesha Agha, ‘Cyber harassment cases are heard in open courts due to which women get worried there. There should be separate courts for women to hear such cases where they can pursue their case without any hassle, embarrassment or pressure.’
Anmol Sajjad, senior helpline associate of Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), an organization working for digital rights in Pakistan, told Independent Urdu that ‘we ourselves work in the cybercrime harassment complaint cell of our organization. So we get 15 to 20 calls every day in this regard.’
Anmol said that ‘most of the complaints made in these calls are about misuse of pictures or videos of the victim without her consent. They are being blackmailed or they are creating memes that are going viral.’
How does inappropriate content go viral on social media?
Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) founder Nighat Dad told Independent Urdu that ‘such content is mostly shared on meme pages or through Tik Tok accounts that are already sharing sensational content. And they somehow escape the community guideline. And the viewers of that content are people who find entertainment in that kind of content.’
How to prevent inappropriate content from going viral?
In this regard, Anmol Sajjad said: ‘The only way to stop it from going viral is that we immediately report the content and the social media account, be it on Instagram, Facebook or other platforms.’
He further said that ‘We are getting calls of cyber harassment every day and we are seeing these incidents every day. These cases then go to the FIA and those under Sections 20 and 21 in which blackmailing is taking place and indecent images and videos are going viral on social media without consent, these cases are The FIA is seen very quickly and the complainant is taken to the FIA office himself.’
He said that the complainants are accompanied by their lawyers and follow their cases but sometimes it happens that the complainants do not want to go to court.
“These complainants are more concerned that whatever inappropriate content they have posted on social media is deleted.”
Like the rest of the world, education and awareness of people is needed to control the misuse of social media in Pakistan.
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