Render your support for child victims of cyber crimes

http://www.cybervictims.org

Bal diwas or children’s day is observed all over India on 14^th November, the birth date of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India.  In the earlier days children’s days were celebrated especially to celebrate the child rights, spread awareness against child labour and about necessity of education and good values among children. But with the passing of the time, the need for using children’s day for addressing different child related issues was realised by child right activists, NGOs, schools and also the government. Considering that this is the age of internet and children are smarter than adults ( in many aspects) when it comes to use of internet and digital communication technology, it becomes very important to include a session to let the children express their own opinion as how they would like to see the internet –connected world around them.  Any research on usage of smart phones may show that there is a difference in ratio of social media users and smart phone users (who may use sophisticated phones but not social media). CCVC conducted one research last year titled “”Harassment via WhatsApp in Urban and rural India (see http://www.cybervictims.org/CCVCresearchreport2015.pdf ) which showed such difference as well as the types of harassments one may receive through WhatsApp. Nonetheless, children from the age group of 5/6 are also using such technology and they have become experts in sending/receiving/sharing contents. What bothers me is when a minor user gets trapped in the tangled net, he/she feels extremely panicked because there is generally no adult with whom he /she may share the information who can guide him/her properly. This is mainly because the child may have used digital communication technology and shared contents without letting the parents or elders know about it. Often parents or elders tend to keep the children busy with tabs or smart phones and they may never know what sorts of dangerous habits they are introducing to children.  The later not only start experimenting with the camera devices, they may also access unwanted staff not only on internet, but also those stored in the phone or tab itself. I have seen many children using parent’s Facebook or WhatsApp accounts to send unwanted contents to other ‘friends’ . Have we ever thought how children are growing their own network of friends through their parent’s profiles? It is ‘experience’ that makes them perfect to communicate with their known friends and then venture for unknown. Often children ask their classmates to log in through their parents’ profiles at particular times.  Slowly they venture to a new world of surfing alone or even creating their own identities in social media alone. For this transition, it does not take much time. Consider the scene at local parks, busy market areas or shops.... you would get to see every second child trying to take a video or photo and invariably, he/she may circulate it via Whatsapp or any similar messaging platforms to his/her relatives or parents’ friends whom he /she tracks for updates.

This habit, if not properly guided, may turn dangerous for the photographer as well as the subjects. While stakeholders are concerned about effects of cyber bullying, one must understand that presently video graphing  hitting, pushing, physical bullying and circulating the same to others ( which is also called happy slapping) is becoming a chosen trend for youngsters. Because of children’s curiosity to learn the new technology, perpetrators may misuse them as ‘agents’ of criminal activities and even use them as victims. There are many resources to know what sorts of victimisations are happening targeting children and matured teens. But how about motivating the victim child to come out of the trauma and not to turn into an offender him/herself? In my recent publication where I have explained our theory called “irrational coping theory” in relation to cyber crimes,(Halder, D., & Jaishankar, K. (2015). Irrational Coping Theory and Positive Criminology: A Frame Work to Protect Victims of Cyber Crime. In N. Ronel and D. Segev (Eds.), Positive Criminology (pp. 276 -291). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-74856-8.) it was shown how victims may turn into offenders by taking up irrational coping mechanism and then turn into offenders themselves.  This children’s day should be taken as a day to spread such awareness among all, especially to  those children who had been victimised . In this connection, I must mention about a video I came across in Facebook. The video running for less than two minutes showed the changes in facial expression of a woman who had been targeted by curious people to answer several unwanted and hurting questions and comments. At the end of the video her face lit up when she started speaking about a few people who came up to her to support and share their own experiences. Her face no longer showed the pain, disgust, insult or anger. Any victim, including victims of cyber crimes, especially child victims, undergoes similar situations when they have to encounter the after effects of victimisation. When a child victim of cyber crime cannot share the details of victimisation to people near to him/her anticipating more harassment, scolding and even physical beating or hitting, he/she feels extremely pressurised to take measures which are extremely dangerous. There are umpteen numbers of examples of children trying to contact hackers, attempting to commit suicide or getting severe depression due to the cyber harassment: all such decisions may also be caused due to this particular issue of not being able to communicate with elders, especially parents and considerate teachers.  If children are more open with their parents and teachers on such issues and the later reciprocates to their needs, the situation can be much different.

Considering this need, on behalf of Centre for Cyber victim Counselling, I have developed a model policy guideline for students, which every school should consider following. The policy guideline titled “Model policy guidelines for directing students for Positive use of internet including social networking sites and WhatsApp”( please cite it as Halder.D(2015), "Model policy guidelines for directing students for Positive use of internet including social networking sites and WhatsApp". URL: http://www.cybervictims.org/moderlpgccvc.pdf) was earlier published in my article titled “Children of internet era: A critical analysis of vulnerability of children in the darker sides of social media and WhatsApp”, (Published in the Conference proceedings of two days international conference on Accompanying social networking in teacher education, held on 26th and 27th March, 2015 by Loyola college of education, Chennai. Pg nos. 17-24.) This policy guideline can help children of internet era to use internet and digital communication technology in a positive way. Not only this; it can also help parents and teachers to get connected with children and build a unique learning experience.

Let us pledge on this children’s day to be positive supports for our children so that they don’t have to opt for irrational coping mechanism.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2015), “Render your support for a child victim of cyber crime”

”, 14^th November, 2015 , published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Circulating child abuse videos: consider how the distributor re-victimises the victim/s

http://www.cybervictims.org by Debarati Halder

Very recently in Facebook a friend of mine posted a video of a little child being violently beaten by an adult. It may be the child’s father or uncle or any other caregiver who wanted the child to score more marks. Some days later, another friend of mine showed me the same clipping in her WhatsApp account. The later being a person well versed in law, did not circulate the clipping. Instead, as per my suggestion, reported the video to WhatsApp. But by this time millions of users of Facebook and WhatsApp would have seen the clipping. But this is not the only incidence of child abuse that may have been documented and circulated in the social media. There are umpteen numbers of video clippings and still images  of child abuse, sexual assault of children, rape videos etc that are being circulated every day in social media. The magic of internet network and social media make many such contents viral. Even if the receiver does not want to see such contents, he/she has to have a glance of such images when such images or clippings land up in his/her profile or account. Have you ever considered how these contents keep travelling time and places and what happens to those victims? One extremely important point every one must note that all contents are not for circulation always. Due to the smart use of smart phones, all of us have become ‘citizen journalists’ who document each and every noteworthy event in his/her daily life every day. These may include traffic violation cases, street children harassment cases, domestic violence cases and even terror strikes. In the last cases, the police and the army may continuously ask the civilians to switch off their mobile phones, especially not to use the mobile messaging services for circulating images as it may help the terrorists as well. For the cause of national security, the particular area may be blocked by intelligence department to receive any internet services. But in other cases, it depends much on individual perceptions as how we are taking the issues of harassment and why do we consider it worthy for circulating to our friends and then to millions of unknown strangers.  People who are capturing such images, may never know that the images/clippings may not only be stored in their own devices, but  may also be stored in other’s devices and that particular person/s may not take it as an issue of concern, but may take it as an issue of self gratification.

          Consider the latest clipping where the child was being beaten by the adult: in many families, parents do slap or hit a growing child as an ultimate measure to discipline him/her. Slowly Indian society is recognising such behaviour of the adults with the children as risky behaviour, especially when intentionally the adults beat the child to an extent to cause grave injury to his/her body. In some families young mothers of young children are over burdened, constantly harassed by the husbands or in laws for various issues including bad cooking, messy house keeping and even for satisfying the demanding husbands. May be because such young mothers need more time to cope with the  situation where they have to balance their time between their children and the family, they (the mothers) may direct their anger and frustration on the children. Nonetheless, such helpless situations of both the mother and child may be documented  by other adults or even children and subsequently these clippings may be used for court cases if in case the husband or the in laws want to prove that the mother is not capable of handling the child. Such images may even travel  in the internet and pile up comments which may prove extremely detrimental to the mother and children later. No one ever comes back  to look into reason why the adult woman had to beat the child or how she would have managed the child later. Who cares? The distributor/s may simply enjoy the  harsh comments targeting the poor woman and her child who may become a strong support to her later. But this is just an exceptional hypothesis which needs to be tested. In the same line, think of the child who is abused by elders including own family members: may be the recipients may shower sympathy to the child, but have you ever considered the mental state of the child when he/she gets to know that his/her clipping has been in that particular situation has been seen by hundreds of ‘watchers’ who can not help him in any way, but  may feel satisfied’ by thinking that sharing the clipping or commenting on the clipping may make them marked as ‘concerned people’.

          The same thing goes when one comes across any sexual abuse of children. Whether it is sexual harassment related to bad touch, or sexual molestation or even to graver offences like rape, one should prohibit oneself from circulating the images even for ‘accused finding’. This is especially true those who capture ragging scenes, sexual harassment scenes where  matured teenagers are victimised who may be joining higher classes after finishing the secondary board exams.  Remember that these young victims may get to see their own victimisation scenes in near future when they log into their Facebook pages or even open accounts with WhatsApp.  It is not enough to hide the faces of the victims alone when the whole scene of victimisation is circulated. The victims themselves may feel extremely traumatised to get back these scenes. It is for this very understanding that the Protection of Children from sexual offences Act, 2012 was strengthened with S.23 which reads as follows:

“23. (1) No person shall make any report or present comments on any child from any form of media or studio or photographic facilities without having complete and authentic information, which may have the effect of lowering his reputation or infringing upon his privacy.

(2) No reports in any media shall disclose, the identity of a child including his name, address, photograph, family details, school, neighbourhood or any other particulars which may lead to disclosure of identity of the child: Provided that for reasons to be recorded in writing, the Special Court, competent to try the case under the Act, may permit such disclosure, if in its opinion such disclosure is in the interest of the child.

(3) The publisher or owner of the media or studio or photographic facilities shall be jointly and severally liable for the acts and omissions of his employee.

(4) Any person who contravenes the provisions of sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) shall be liable to be punished with imprisonment of either description for a period which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year or with fine or with both”

However, all laws come with an exception clause where by certain actions that are  recognised as offence, would not be considered as an offence if done by the criminal justice machinery in particular ways laid down by the laws and for particular reasons which must pass the acid test of laws as well as the constitutional  provisions and guarantees.  POCSO Act stands as an exception especially in this regard when it comes to circulating the images for fact finding.  After WhatsApp has been recognised as an extremely popular medium to communicate with the police, the government is constantly encouraging to create welfare Apps whereby individuals can upload or download information or share information with the police. We need to note that even while availing this technology, police must use the images of the accused which should be independent from the crime scene as a whole. Police has been given this special right because they are the recognised organisation to carry on the investigation for the benefit of the victim as well as the society. Civilians should not take the role of the police in circulating of the images.

However, I have noted that even while in such circumstances; such circulation by the police may also meet accidental violation of the laws and victim’s rights. But we need to note that for this again, there are proper reporting and investigating mechanisms.  In my opinion, instead of taking up the responsibility of spreading the news about the accused by way spreading the victimisation clipping /image as a while( which actually spreads the victimisation of the child in question as well), people must consider immediately reporting the matter to the local police station or police head quarters with all evidence to show from where the images have travelled. This would definitely reduce the chances of re-victimising the victim and make the ‘reporter’ of the offensive clipping a saviour in a unique way.

Do consider.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2015), " Circulating child abuse videos: consider how the distributor re-victimises the victim/s”, 21^st August, 2015 , published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Hate messages: do we really need to be concerned?

http://www.cybervictims.org by Dr.Debarati Halder

Recently I was delivering a plenary speech in the recently held international conference on accompanying social networking sites in teacher’s education arranged by the Loyola college of education, Chennai. Most of the participants were either university students  or aspiring teachers and 90% of whom felt social networking sites were extremely harmful for children as well as women. My presentation was on the darker side of internet. But I made it lot brighter by presenting a model policy guideline as how schools can mould children in this regard. My article on children of internet era, which I have uploaded in a few  web platforms including Academica.edu   thus provides an understanding as how hate speech including cyber bullying and other cyber atrocities are picked up by children, or rather instilled in them, which may later make them hardcore bullies, trolls or agents of terror. Fortunate are we that our children who may be picking up these traits or are falling victims of such dangerous activities of other children, or their parents or the schools can look for help from us who are researching on the subjects and those of us who getting aware of the issue by such discussions. In our generation when we were growing up, not many of our parents or teachers or schools did not have such vast opportunities to learn about the trends and issues of deviant behaviours of children which would make them hardcore bullies or terror agents. Resultant, we have people who hurl hate speech, harassing speech, insulting remarks, offending comments thinking that this is the way to win over people even if their ultimate demands are devastating for the world.  I say this because just a few days before my plenary session at Chennai blogger Avijit Roy was brutally assassinated in Bangladesh and some days after the same pattern followed for Washiqur Rahman, another secular blogger. Both were attacked for their revolutionary thoughts published through their blogs and other online publishing portals.

My concern is not particularly for what they wrote or how they wrote or what invited the terror organisations to kill them; my concern is how the threat was created to make them stronger on their views. As I get to know from numerous media reports, both of them had received warnings from the terror organisations that killed them. Avijit’s case especially attracts my attention as it can be seen that he would have received threat mails, hate mails, posts, messages etc against his views. How the world now should take such hate messages that are posted/sent/written targeting the potential victims? Since I received a copy of Professor Daniele Citron’s book Hate crimes in Cyber space  for a book review, I read the chapters, the case studies and the legal interpretations of the writer as well as other judges, police officers, lawyers  who may have dealt with such cases repeatedly. It is an unfortunate truth that the receivers of such hate messages may consider these as typical challenges which motivate them to proceed further in their aim. In cases like the bloggers’ murders, these threats messages could have been and should have been reported to the police and if reported, then the police should have taken enough precautions to save the lives. But in both the cases, terror groups won.

World mourned their death.

Consider what happens when some one receives threat messages, hate messages, insulting messages, and defamatory notes due to interpersonal problems. Most of the cases when such messages are received from known acquaintances or the potential interpersonal stalkers or ex partners, the victim is advised to shun off the harasser, avoid answering calls and ignore the messages. But it does not mean that the victim is encouraged to speak about such messages in public or speak derogatorily about the harasser in public.  By saying ‘avoid’, the victim is advised to close doors to the perpetrator: it is like do not talk to him, do not entertain his messages and do not talk about him. In my recently published book chapter titled “Irrational coping theory and positive criminology: a framework toprotect victims of cyber crime” (co-authored with Dr.K.Jaishankar, published in the book “Positive Criminology”, edited by Natty Ronnel Dana Segav by Routledge), where I spoke about my theory on irrational coping mechanism in relation to online harassments, I discussed in detail about this sort of positive coping mechanism. The second step is obviously to report the matter to the police. The law and the legal interpretations in the US and also in India speak about reasonable threat test. Unfortunately, in 90% of the cases, police do not entertain such reports. Reasons are numerous in number. It is not only from my own personal experience in the Indian context; those who are researching or practically dealing with online harassment cases from across the globe would agree with me.  But why does this situation stay? especially in India? In almost all of my scholarly articles and research reports I have emphasized the fact of reluctance of the victims in reporting crimes and reluctance in reporting such messages at the first instance is no exception. The bloggers’ death revealed to me the need of understanding offensive messages again and from a new light.

Do not keep quite when you receive such messages. Do not ignore the message. Take it as a challenge, but not the way to give the harasser more chances to stop you forever. Share the ‘fear’, not in the fashion that you would create a cycle of hate for hate, but through proper mechanism. Teach your children to be rational by being rational.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2015), Hate messages: do we really need to be concerned?

April 7,2015   published in  http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/