April 14, 2014
Kabul: Technology-related violence is the newest crime against women in Afghanistan. Cyber stalking and manipulation of personal information are creating conflicts within families and fear among women internet users.
Tahera Bakhtiari from Jaghoori district, Ghazni province, believes men pretending to be women on social network sites like Facebook are harassing women by misusing their personal images and videos. “Boys make fake Facebook id’s showing they are girls and contact girls only to insult them,” she says. “This type of violence is worse than physical violence because it is related to a woman’s honour. Such men have no respect for women’s rights,” she adds.
Saboor Nezami, a student at the law faculty, Balkh University, Mazar-e-Sharif, says, “Many men and women have fictitious names on Facebook. It’s hard to say who’s male or female.”
Alaka Sadat who is a cinematographer describes men who cyberstalk women and girls as “(mentally) ill and jobless people”. In a society where murder for the sake of family honour is condoned families can do anything to women and girls whose personal comments or pictures has been misused by strangers on Facebook. “Since ours is a traditional society women get damaged by online and internet violence,” she says.
However, she urges women not to give up using new technologies because of fear of online violence. The technology provides mechanisms to assure women security and safety, she says. It is for the government to develop new policies and practices that respect women’s rights, and build an online culture that will not tolerate behaviour and practices harmful and violent to women and girls, according to Sadat. “Abuse should be punished so that no one dares to annoy another person online,” she says.
Technology-related violence is a problem everywhere. The Association for Progressive Communications, a worldwide network of activists committed to easy and affordable access to a free and open internet, thinks violations are increasing, and women and girls who fall victims do not know what to do to stop the abuse. Afghanistan like many countries does not have policies, regulations or services that respond to these new forms of violence.
Reinforces patriarchy
Benefsha Yusufi who is studying in China believes that restrictions on women are a problem particularly in patriarchal societies like Afghanistan. Customs demand women must be modest and anonymous. “When their pictures are misused on the internet it can be counted as a slap on their life,” she says. “People don’t see online violence as a crime against women and girls although this is not any less of a problem than other types of violence,” she adds.
It is possible that both men and women are victims of technology-related violence but women are more vulnerable, says Yusufi. Here sharing a woman or girl’s picture or abusing and cheating on social network sites can be a menacing experience, she observes.
Deputy Minister for Women’s Affairs Muzhgan Mustafawi who is also a lecturer at the faculty of journalism, Kabul University, says there is a need to “strengthen the media culture”, which is already regulated by laws on copyright and general media. But the deputy minister does not seem to think there is an urgency to tackling online violence because “no one has formally complained”, according to her.
However Sediqullah Tawhidi, head of Nai, says the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has prepared a draft law to protect safety online but it has not been approved by Parliament. Currently apart from a “hint in the media law” there are no mechanisms to police online violence, he adds. By by Samad Ali Nawazish, Killid Radio