It is impossible to find a woman in Bangladesh who has not been sexually harassed online even once, but try finding a woman who has sought legal recourse for it under the Digital Security Act. It is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Amina is one such needle. A final year student of University of Dhaka, she filed a case against a person who sexually harassed her online in 2020, but is still waiting for something, anything, to happen. She requested anonymity to avoid reprisal.
“On October 20, 2020, a male junior from my department who was barely known to me misbehaved with me on Facebook over a comment. He was not on my friend list. [Demanding to know] what my problem was, he asked me a question [that shook me]: ‘Does your fiance know that you do stuff like this?’ He uttered gender discriminating statements and questioned my religious beliefs,” said Amina.
“In spite of all his insulting, demeaning and gender derogatory remarks I continued the conversation respectfully, stating again and again that he cannot talk to me like this. Then at one point he threatened me saying, ‘Do this again if you have courage left, will show you what I am capable of,’” said Amina.
She went to Shahbagh police station two days later and filed a general diary stating that a person committed an offence against her, a violation of Section 25 (A) of the Digital Security Act.
Section 25 (A) states that, if any person, through any website or any other digital medium, intentionally or knowingly transmits, publishes or propagates any data or information which he knows to be offensive, false or threatening in order to annoy, insult, humiliate or malign a person, then such act of the person shall be an offence.
This is the section under which dozens of journalists have been sued for what they have written or published, and this is one of the multiple “offences” of cartoonist Ahmed Kishore and writer Mushtaq Ahmed, both of whom were allegedly tortured in custody.
While journalists, cartoonists, writers and free thinkers have been arrested at the drop of a hat under the DSA for making “offensive” social media posts, real offenders like sexual harassers slip through.
“I had to go to the cyber crime department where the police officer sat me and my harasser down together and mocked me for wanting to proceed with this case. He said, ‘People are left with no work during this corona period. Thus this is happening. Why do you want to tarnish your university's name at court? Please rethink,’’’ said Amina. As the officer made light of the situation, her harasser smirked.
She was directed to the lower court to file a petition requesting that the investigation begin, on November 15. Her petition was accepted and she was told that the investigation report will be sent to the police station within a week. “Since then, there has been no news regarding that case. It has been 113 days and I am waiting in line to know what will happen next,” said Amina. She is continuing to attend classes with the harasser.
Sexual harassment of women online is of epidemic proportions, and it is a price women pay for speaking up, or even for existing on social media.
As activists would say, at no time is the abuse more apparent than when women take to the streets to seek justice for gender-based violence—an overpowering wave of online trolls hoist their keyboards.
In the beginning of the year, there was a horrific rape and murder of a young student. When her classmates—mere schoolchildren—left their classrooms and held up banners on a road to demand justice, a barrage of adult men online jumped on their photos, videos and posts.
“Is this not the ***** who had gone to group study? She had voluntarily been raped so why is she asking for justice?” wrote a man beneath a Facebook photo of a young girl holding up a placard saying “My body, my choice”. A few hundreds rushed in to support him.
“Yes it is your body, your choice, but only in your room. If you come to protest in a public place, then you will be caned,” said another man. Seventy-four people supported his comment.
On YouTube too, the comments sections of the videos of the protest were littered with threats of rape; too numerous to document, too violent to ignore.
“The online public space is an extension or another version of the physical public space. Being online for women means the same thing—violence or fear of violence,” said Umama Zillur, founder of Kotha, an organisation that has been pushing back against gender-based violence on social media.
“Sharing personal photos and other information online… has been another tool used against women activists. We need a democratic environment and social climate, where there is freedom of expression and accountability for those in power, if we are going to try and create a safe space for women online. The DSA hasn't meant safety or justice for women,” she said.
Data from the Cyber Crimes Tribunal shows that 1,228 cases were filed under the Digital Security Act since the inception of the law in October 2018. Considering the barrage of harassers active on social media, it is clear that women are not using this law to protect themselves.
“If there are a hundred cases, about 35 per cent would be filed by women,” said Nazrul Islam Shamim, special public prosecutor of the Cyber Crimes Tribunal, pointing out that women seeking justice are in fact a relative minority. The tribunal could not say how many of these cases were by women trying to protect themselves from online abusers, and how many had succeeded.
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Singer-actor-development worker Rafiath Rashid Mithila is one of the most sexually harassed women in Bangladesh cyberspace, and to her, the Digital Security Act is as useless as a tail.
Ever since her divorce from another well-known musician, online sexual harassment has made up much of the publicity she has received on social media.
“How many cases can I file? At the rate I get harassed, I would need the cyber crimes department to handle my social media accounts. I only sought legal help when someone I know was hacked and certain private photos were leaked all over social media. But other than that, I have not filed any cases,” said Mithila.
“I remember this one time, I actually outlined the punishments afforded by the law in a Facebook post, hoping to convey the seriousness of the crime being committed, but the harassers trolled that post too,” she said.
“The law is there, but implementation is not. If there were a few exemplary cases of justice, the others would get scared. They do this because they know they can get away with it,” she said.
These days, Mithila is bracing herself for a new challenge—how to protect her 7-year-old daughter, who she fears will soon face the abuse that her mother faces, simply by extension.
“My daughter knows how her mother gets attacked. She is being taught about cyber harassment from this age, and how to deal with it. It is hard,” she said. “As humans we get upset when one person says something negative about us, and now there are thousands saying all this.”
Zyma Islam is a reporter at The Daily Star, Bangladesh