From November 25 to December 10 annually, the United Nations implores governments to transcend mere rhetoric and confront violence against women. This year, the UN’s UNiTE campaign has redirected its focus to a burgeoning battlefield: the digital realm.
With the theme “UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls,” UN Women cautions that technology has evolved into a prominent channel for stalking, threats, and indignities directed at women and girls. Alarmingly, many continue to exist without specific legal protections against such violations. Bangladesh is not exempt from this troubling scenario.
Over the past decade, Bangladesh has amassed a convoluted assortment of laws targeting gender-based and digital violence. The Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2010 has been aptly celebrated as a groundbreaking statute, defining domestic abuse to encompass physical, psychological, sexual, and economic maltreatment.
The Pornography Control Act of 2012, the nation’s inaugural dedicated law addressing pornography, offers redress for cases where intimate images are recorded or disseminated to shame or exploit women.
Nonetheless, studies conducted by Bangladeshi scholars and women’s rights organisations reveal significant shortcomings in implementation: abuse frequently remains classified as a familial issue, frontline personnel often lack adequate training, and public awareness remains alarmingly low.
The most contentious layer encompasses cybercrime legislation. Section 57 of the outdated ICT Act earned notoriety for its nebulous definitions of offences and sweeping powers.
This was succeeded in 2018 by the Digital Security Act (DSA), which rights advocates decried as even more draconian. Numerous instances were documented wherein its expansive provisions were utilised to detain journalists, activists, and social media users for their online expressions.
Under mounting pressure, the prior government eventually announced plans to abolish the DSA in favour of the Cyber Security Act (CSA). However, evaluations subsequently revealed that the CSA retained nearly all provisions of the DSA, essentially repackaging existing restrictions.
The interim administration has since annulled the CSA and introduced a Cyber Security Ordinance, while signalling intentions to enshrine internet access as a civil right and reassess the most controversial clauses.
This shift in rhetoric is commendable. The broader takeaway is that cyber laws have been justified under the guise of safety, yet their enforcement often undermines freedom of expression.
For women and girls contending with digital violence, this historical context of cyber legislation in Bangladesh is crucial.
A woman who has witnessed critics unjustly imprisoned for civic discourse under these laws may understandably hesitate to seek justice within a framework that has been pervasively misused. When protection becomes a guise for surveillance and censorship, faith in state institutions diminishes.
The UNiTE campaign thus presents Bangladesh with a pivotal opportunity to forge an alternative trajectory. It aims to address the escalating concerns of digital violence, encompassing online abuse, harassment, and coercive control, while advocating for the creation of safer and more inclusive online environments.
The objective, as articulated by the UN, is to galvanise governments, tech corporations, and communities to take decisive action against digital violence and to promote gender parity within digital contexts.
A rights-respecting digital future for women and girls will not materialise merely by renaming statutes. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) must be distinctly delineated in legislation.
UN Women and associated experts utilise the term TFGBV to encompass cyberstalking, image-based abuse, the non-consensual sharing of intimate content, AI-generated deepfakes, and other varieties of online harassment that bear tangible consequences in the physical world.
The United Kingdom has criminalised the non-consensual sharing of intimate images since 2015, and courts have sentenced offenders for engaging in revenge porn, sextortion, and threats to disseminate private photographs.
In 2023, the Online Safety Act broadened this scope to encompass deepfakes as well. Australian courts have similarly adjudicated offenders for surreptitiously documenting women without consent and disseminating intimate material, issuing both custodial sentences and substantial fines.
South Korea classifies digital sex crimes as severe infractions, boasting specialised cyber units and courts that regularly dispense stringent prison terms.
These nations act decisively because their definitions of crimes are unequivocal.
Bangladesh’s legal framework must explicitly acknowledge and define various forms of violence and their corresponding provisions.
The non-consensual sharing of intimate images has frequently fallen under the ambit of the Cyber Security Act or the Pornography Control Act, though neither distinctly identifies image-based abuse as a separate crime.
Deepfakes and AI-generated sexual content remain unmentioned in any legal text. Cases are often compelled into broader legal categories concerning defamation, obscenity, or unauthorised data manipulation—none of which effectively encapsulate the actual harm wrought. These serve as just two illustrative instances.
Moreover, protection must extend beyond mere incarceration. Survivors require secure avenues for seeking assistance: clear reporting channels, user-friendly complaint mechanisms, and law enforcement, as well as prosecutors trained to handle digital evidence while avoiding victim-blaming, alongside time-sensitive procedures for eliminating abusive content.
Absent substantial investment in awareness, training, and oversight, progressive laws will remain theoretical constructs.
Any forthcoming cyber legislation must be rooted in international human rights standards. This necessitates narrowing the definitions of offences, instituting robust safeguards against arbitrary arrest and surveillance, and decriminalizing defamation along with other non-violent expressions.
Criminal sanctions should be reserved exclusively for serious offences such as credible threats, extortion, child sexual exploitation, and sustained stalking.
As the 16 Days of Activism unfold, the pressing question for Bangladesh is not whether digital violence prevails. Women and girls, public figures, and private citizens alike have long endured its repercussions.
The fundamental inquiry pertains to the kind of virtual environment this nation desires to cultivate. A digital future envisioned by the UNiTE campaign would empower a teenager to report a manipulated image without trepidation, enable a woman to confront harassment without fearing arrest, and allow critics to voice necessary opinions without the spectre of punitive action looming overhead.
Source link: Thedailystar.net.
