If you want to understand how to become better allies to people with disabilities, then join us at Embracing All Abilities: Including People with Disabilities at Work.
Sextortion is a rapidly growing new cyber crime where the perpetrator uses nude photographs of victims to gain even more sexually explicit content from them. Read on.
If you thought extortion had nothing to do with your privacy, then you’re in for a rude shock. Sextortion is a new form of cyber/online harassment that appears to be on the rise.
Operating through the use of nude or racy photographs of a person to demand even racier photographs or videos, Sextortion is fast becoming a dangerous crime that targets adolescent and adult women alike.
In October 2015, in Cincinnati, USA, three men were charged for pressuring several young women into giving them sexually explicit photographs of themselves, threatening them with vengeful consequences if they did not comply. Sextortion becomes all the more possible thanks to the many devices that enable a person to get on the grid with visual imagery.
Sextortion presents a horrible threat that women are forced to guard against: one more to an already terribly long list of crimes that women face on a daily basis. Needless to say, sextortion as a crime has its roots in patriarchal and misogynistic attitudes, in that a woman’s body is objectified and appropriated through blackmail and extortion.
In a profiling of the victims by a recent study by the Brookings institution, most victims happen to be adolescent minors. Of the adult victims, a majority are women. In a profiling of victims of cyber stalking, abuse and harassment by the Pew Center in 2014, it came to light that a majority of those targeted are women who have low self-esteem, teenage girls who are lonely or looking for friends, or even simply trying to fit in.
It is no surprise that the existence of Sextortion throws up manifold consequences. Today, sex-positive feminism and body-positive imagery is growing to be one of the most powerful tools to spread positive messages of empowerment.
On the other hand, the appropriation of the pictures of a person to extort even racier images is a dreadful crime that also has the potential to single-handedly wipe all the marginal gains that have been made vis-à- vis sex-positive feminist activism. That photo manipulation and redesign makes everyone equally vulnerable and it is alarming.
So far as the law goes, in India, Sextortion is not defined as a distinct crime – although the confluence of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and cyber laws may be brought forth to bring a perpetrator to book. Section 383 of the Indian Penal Code defines Extortion as a crime when coercion, blackmail and fraud is used to extort something – which this section confines to valuable property or signed documentation. This could be interpreted creatively to include photographs and imagery – while reading alongside Sections 292 to 294 of the Indian Penal Code that penalise obscenity as a crime.
Section 72 of the Information Technology Act, 2008, addresses cyber stalking and harassment. Sextortion is every bit a nuanced crime in the manner in which it is perpetrated – and the legal approach, until such time the law evolves to specifically define and punish, it will be just as nuanced.
Image Source: Youtube
read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Yuvaraj Shele, a small-time worker from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, did battle many odds and arranged for his mother Ratna’s wedding a few weeks ago. The main point that he put forth was that he felt his mother was lonely and saw the need for her to live happily.
A myth that goes without saying is that only a woman can understand another woman better. What happens when a man does understand what a woman goes through? Especially when the woman is his mother, that too when she is a widow?
This scene does remind of a few movies/web series where the daughter/son do realize their mother’s emotions and towards the end, they approve of their new relationship.
Just because they are married a husband isn’t entitled to be violent to his wife. Just because a man is "in love" with a woman, it doesn't give him a right to be violent.
Trigger Warning: This speaks of graphic details of violence against women and may be triggering for survivors.
Anger is a basic human emotion, just like happiness or being sad. One chooses his/her way of expressing that emotion. It is safe until that action stays within oneself.
What happens when that feeling is forced upon another? The former becomes the perpetrator, and the latter turns out to be the victim.
Please enter your email address