Over the years, your support has made Women’s Web the leading resource for women in India. Now, it is our turn to ask, how can we make this even more useful for you? Please take our short 5 minute questionnaire – your feedback is important to us!
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!
Many women have lost their lives to this darkness. It's high time we raise awareness, and make maternal mental health screening a part of the routine check ups.
Trigger Warning: This deals with severe postpartum depression, and may be triggering for survivors.
Motherhood is considered a beautiful blessing. Being able to create a new life is indeed beautiful and divine. We have seen in movies, advertisements, stories, everywhere… where motherhood is glorified and a mother is considered an epitome of tolerance and sacrifice.
But no one talks about the downside of it. No one talks about the emotional changes a woman experiences while giving birth and after it.
Whether it is spunky Lali or wise and profound Baai, overbearing Sui or a gracefully ageing Dilbar, sensitive Saiba or a quietly ambitious Latika, this webseries showcases women characters who are as complex, compassionate and conflicted as real women.
The first short film in the latest Amazon Prime anthology – Modern Love Mumbai( inspired by the much acclaimed Modern love column of New York Times) is titled “Raat Rani” deriving it’s name from the fragrant night-blooming jasmine flower.
*A few spoilers
Director Shonali Bose uses this flower as not just a plot point but also a metaphor for her protagonist Lalzari (a fiesty Fatima Sana Shiekh), a Muslim migrant worker from Kashmir who has eloped with her husband Lutfi to the city of dreams, Mumbai. She works as a cook-cum-nanny and her husband as a watchman in a Mumbai high-rise. After work they spend time with each other gazing at the sea, sharing ice-cream and taking a scooter ride back home, to their kholi, on which they have spent all their earnings.