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”, 21st
August, 2015 , published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
