Tanzina Hossain :

In recent times Bangladesh has seen new ways of perpetrating violence against women. This is cyber bullying.

It looks like the propensities for such violence against women is crossing all limits. Certain men are attacking women on social media over any issue, with any motive, as this perhaps is the easiest way to silence women, to repress them, oppress them and to punish them. Sometimes entire groups get together to target a woman relentlessly. Politically and socially active women are the most targetted.

According to a study of Action Aid carried out in 2020, around 64 per cent of the women in Bangladesh have been victims of online abuse and violence in one way or the other. And from the July uprising of 2024 till date, this violence has crossed all records. We have seen unimaginable and unspeakable attacks on social media against the women coordinators and activists of the mass uprising. It continues.

Also, women journalists, writers, and activists who were Chhatra League leaders and supporters of the fascist government, have not been spared online either. And it is the men of both sides who have increasingly chosen the online platform to harass women of the opposing camp. Even when they want to lash out at their rival males, they target women among their families and close friends. It is outrageous that some of these women's male colleagues or associates fail to protest.

The Action Aid study stated that the most used platform for online bullying is Facebook (47 per cent) and them Messenger (35 per cent). The most common form of harassment is to make objectionable, sexually suggestive comments and hate statements (80.4 per cent).

Then there is the sending of sex-related dirty messages or pictures (53 per cent). In 17.5 per cent of the cases, fake IDs are used and the harassment increased. In 11.8 per cent of the cases, women's personal pictures and information is posted on Facebook without their permission and they are bullied accordingly. And 11.8 per cent of women have increasingly received threats of rape of sexual assault on their Facebook walls or over Messenger.

In this age of digital mob lynching, it is every easy for men to "rape" women online. They may not be able to get the women in reality, but if they have a Facebook ID, they easily assault women online, "rape" them and subject them to sexual assault.

They can sexually harass a woman as they please, sitting in Satkhira and using a Smartphone to sexually harass a woman in Dhaka, be it a university student or teacher, senior woman official, even a woman advisor. No one is bothered, there is no justice, no protest. On the contrary, social media users are quite titillated by all this. Many may not be carrying out the harassment themselves per se, but are sharing these posts and spreading them wider among other users. This is quite the heyday for misogynist men in Bangladesh.

Online harassment not only demeans, humiliates and embarrasses women in front of their families and society, but the impact of this on women is long-lasting and horrific. Researcher at IUT Bangladesh, Dr Md Ruhul Amin, in his 'Causes and Consequences of Cyber Bullying against Women in Bangladesh: A Comprehensive Study,' said women victims of online harassment face mental and emotional distress, fear and alarm, and they head towards social isolation.

According to Action Aid, 65 per cent of them face psychological trauma, depression and anxiety, 42 per cent move away from expressing themselves or using social media, and 25 per cent suffering from loss of confidence and self-respect. Some resort to self-harm and even suicide. This digital abuse violence is no less a crime that physical abuse or violence, but we remain silent about it.

Studies say that 85 per cent of the women do not lodge any complaint in this regard and very few of the 15 per cent who do, receive justice. The country where there is not justice for the crime of rape, it may seem foolish to expect justice in the case of digital rape. But the time has come to speak out, to turn around.

On 4 March this year, player of the national women's football team Matsushima Sumaya said on her verified Facebook page that she was increasingly becoming subject to murder and rape threats. She said she was mentally breaking down under pressure of these threats.

Dr Mahmuda Mitu, joint member secretary of the newly formed National Citizen Party, in a Facebook post said, "The abuse and threats and messages that I receive in my inbox, are enough to drive anyone insane. The number of sexually perverted people is increasing alarmingly."
She wrote, "In the beginning it will be painful for non-political girls from normal decent families, but later they will simply brush this aside. That's how politics proceeds in Bangladesh."

At a seminar last year, gender specialist and Chief of Staff at Tech Global Institute, Fauzia Afroze, had said, "As it is there is low participation of women in politics in this country. Conservative culture and social behaviour discourages women from entering politics. And on top of this when misinformation is spread, there is far that women's participation in politics is even further constricted."

She has shown that among those who are increasingly victims of misinformation on digital media during political activists or during the elections, the top tem are women. These women are extensively harassed on social media by means of trolling, doxing, using Deep Fake pictures, intimate photographs, sexually abusive remarks and so on.

During the July uprising, just as Nusrat Jahan, Umama Fatema and others were victims of online harassment, late Samina Lutfa, Geeti Ara Nasrin, journalist Deepti Chowdhury, Barrister Rumeen Farhana and even advisor Rizwana Hasan were no spared. Just as actress Badhon was subject to digital violence at the time, actress Meher Afroze Shaon and Sohana Saba were also victims of digital violence. The attackers were of different ideological ilk, but were all the same when it came to assassinating women's character.

When it comes to attacking men on digital platforms, even then there is a propensity to target related women. We saw this in the past in the case of cricketer Shakib Al Hasan's wife or mayor Atiqul Huq's daughter. The same has happened in the case of the daughter of Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to the chief advisor. He recently even told the media that he would never have taken up this post had he known his family would have been attacked in this manner.

Protesting against a recent incident in Mohammadpur, Adrita Roy was particularly targeted because of her father. The most effective way to humiliate a family is to target the woman member of that family.
While men are the most effective weapons to repress, harass, silence and push back women in politics, sports, universities, in the state machinery, social activism or the celebrity world, some their associate women too are aiding and abetting them in the digital world. Where will this end?

Where will these women victims of horrific violence and abuse seek justice where the state itself in certain instances is encouraging such behaviour? The police reportedly have an institution called Cyber Support for Women, there is the Centre for Violence against Women and Children national helpline. But do we really have any place to turn to, to seek justice against digital oppression? Do women have any scope to receive justice?