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Thursday 23 June 2011

[wanita-muslimah] Cyber Harassment and Women

*Cyber Harassment and Women*
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*This is a guest post by Black Onyx. Black Onyx is a former teacher at an
all girls convent school; she is now an independent entrepreneur. She lives
in Singapore. This post originally appeared at Online
Safety<http://onlinesafety.blog.com/2011/06/14/cyber-harassment-and-women%E2%80%99s-rights/>.
*

*My story*

My life has not quite been the same since 2nd Nov 2010. A person whom I
helped in real life decided to destroy my life by posting my personal
details bearing my name, age, ethnic group, work and mobile phone numbers,
workplace and home address in an online ad as a teacher in Singapore
advertising for sexual services.

This person (for the sake of convenience, I shall call him the impersonator)
also stole pictures of me from a friend's Facebook photo album and posted it
along with my personal particulars these online ads which were placed in
local classified online ad websites as well as on international pornographic
sites. He also created a fake Facebook profile on me bearing my name.

He impersonated me online and chatted with men and had them to call and
visit my school where I teach and my residence to "indulge in rape fantasies
in my school toilets." He also incited men "catch me by surprise at my home
and school."

To date, I have had many visitations by the men he had spoken to,
impersonating as me, the latest being June 4th and June 7th 2011.The
impersonator himself has appeared on my doorstep when he was informed that I
had filed a Magistrate's Complaint on him and hurled disparaging and obscene
remarks about my chastity and modesty to my mother, brother and myself.

Though his identity has been linked with the IP address as the one who
created these ads and the fact that he admitted to created these fake ads on
me to the police when he was brought in for questioning, he has not being
called to court (only once on which he did not appear as he provided a
medical certificate and was not called to court since then) or been found
guilty for his crime.

It has been 6 months since I lodged a Magistrate's Complaint, attended 5
Magistrate Court hearings (where he was not given a notice to attend) and
have my case adjourned to 6 weeks since the last hearing on 8th April 2011.
[Please read my previous blog entries for more details on the court
proceedings]

The impersonator launched a fresh wave of attacks on June 4th 2011 when he
impersonated me and chatted with a foreign Indian I.T. professional to visit
me at my residence and to "ask for a teacher by the name of Priya Bala who
teaches at CHIJ'". As my family and I were not at home on June 4th, the
impersonator instructed the foreign Indian national to visit me again on
June 7th at my residence. My family and I learnt from the Indian national
that he was told by "me" that my house was a "prostitute's house" and that
there was a "real Singaporean teacher who teaches at CHIJ is giving sexual
services there." The impersonator directed the foreign Indian national to my
home at night instead of the school in the day as it is the school holidays.
[Please refer to my first 2 blog entries for more details]
*
21st Century Sexual Harassment*

I feel that a new kind of sexual harassment is emerging in the midst of our
country and that being cyber harassment. This online harassment that
includes rape threats, doctored photographs of women, posting of women's
home addresses along with suggestions that that they are interested in
anonymous sex(all of which I experienced in the past 6 months till now) that
profoundly harm women online or offline is sadly overlooked and trivialized
by law enforcement agencies in Singapore. From how I perceive it, cyber
harassment is gender discrimination online as women are targeted as victims
and our gender as women is abused in sexually threatening and degrading ways
as victims of cyber harassment.

It has not been uncommon in history for threats to women's safety and basic
freedom to be trivialized. Sexual harassment of women in the workplace was
not even recognized as a crime until the 1970s. Society ignored or did not
regard domestic violence as inhumane injustice to women for 200 years. Now
the refusal to take seriously the cyber harassment of women is not
surprising in light of previous trivialization of harms suffered by women.

From my experience with cyber harassment, it is very frustrating when ever I
articulated my fears to the authorities about me (or my female pupils) being
sexually attacked as these fears were dismissed as "just talk by cowards
hiding behind the cloak of the internet" , or when they dismissed the
perpetrator as " a juvenile delinquent or mischief-maker". I was made to
feel that I was making a mountain out of a molehill despite receiving
numerous rape threats bordering on the hundreds and visitation by men at my
home for "sexual services' who wanted to "catch me by surprise" by either
"hid[ing] in my school toilet to rape me and my female students as
instructed by [me]" or "wait[ing] at my flat's void deck to rape me."

So the cavalier attitude adopted by the law enforcement agencies in regards
to my case of cyber harassment only demonstrated to me this: Cyber
harassment is gender discrimination as women in my country need to tolerate
these cyber "pranks". Despite the identity of the perpetrator known to the
authorities and the fact that he admitted to creating the ad and
impersonating me, he is still out there and free to send even more men to my
home and workplace to "indulge in [my] rape fantasies."

I get the impression that the authorities will only take action when I do
eventually get raped by one of these men sent by the perpetrator or when one
of my female pupils gets raped. Even then, the perpetrator might walk free
as the rape might be committed by the "minions of sexually frustrated men or
perverts" whom he incited to visit me.

I am starting to believe that my case must be trivialized because of my
gender and that actual physical harm has not befallen on me or my female
pupils yet. For what other reasons can there be for not apprehending and
trying the perpetrator when his identity is known?

*Cyber Harassment and Harms to Women*

Cyber harassment is gender discrimination as women's gender is threatened in
ways that interfere with their autonomy, freedom, livelihood, identity,
dignity and well being in the same way that sexual harassment in the
workplace and domestic violence created harms specific to our gender as
women.

The harms from cyber harassment are particularly unique to women as men do
not usually experience sexual threats and demeaning comments pertaining to
their gender or do they experience threats suggesting that their inferiority
due to their gender.

My case was mainly handled by males in the law enforcement agencies and I
suppose this is the reason why it is trivialized and even dismissed as
unimportant as they do not understand the kinds of suffering that women go
through when they are faced with "online threats of sexual violence in a
literal sense whey they convey the message that the attackers control the
victim's safety."

Rape threats are extremely frightening to any woman, a gender specific fear
which men do not and will not understand.

*Online Threat =Offline Danger*

Social Costs

Cyber harassment affects a woman's freedom of moment and speech. I used to
participate actively in community work prior to this incident. All of my
young life, through my schooling days, study stint abroad and in my teaching
career, I made the time to volunteer and engage myself in community work as
it has always been a passion of mine to be a volunteer.

For a period of 6 months, since last year, I was unable to engage actively
as a Youth leader in my community as I was busy preparing for my court case,
writing to organizations, communicating with law enforcement agencies to
update them on recent harassment and visitations by respondents to the ads.
In the midst of it, I had to balance my workload of a teacher as well and it
was particularly stressful as I was harassed by phone calls and visitations
by respondents to my school as well. As a result, I had to do away with
being a volunteer or engaging with my community.

It was only recently when I have resumed volunteering to help aged residents
by serving them food in a temple. I met young enthusiastic volunteers at
this non-profit organization, one of whom was a young woman aspiring to be a
teacher. When she heard that I was a teacher of 6 years, she wanted to know
where I taught.

I was surprised when I found out that it was difficult to even tell her my
name and the school at which I was teaching as I thought "What if she
Googled my name and my school? What if she found out the disgusting fake ad
on me or the fake Google profile on me?"

I did not like the feeling where I had to be fearful of even saying my name
and place of work. Simple questions like "Where do you live?" I cannot even
answer nowadays to people whom I am getting to know in real life. What kind
of life is this? When I cannot say my name, my place of work or even
volunteer in community projects for fear that I might be recognized as "the
teacher advertising for sex?"

My identity was stolen, the job which I love doing and worked very hard for
the past 6 years, I cannot even speak about passionately anymore, my love
for community work I cannot participate in actively (as I used to) anymore
until my name is cleared from the online desecration and my identity
restored to me by having the impersonator punished.

It is difficult to establish my school networks online and offline when I
had to deactivate my Facebook account, change my mobile numbers and email
addresses as well. My reputation and name in my community and neighbourhood
is affected when neighbours hear strange men asking for me at my doorstep
for "sexual services". I need to watch my back more often now when I return
home at night or any part of the day for fear that I might be sexually
assaulted.

As for my experience, law enforcement agencies in my country are not taking
my case seriously as I had to convince them from the beginning that not only
my life and safety as a woman is at risk but that of my female pupils as
well. If I had not pursued my case "aggressively" by writing to the
Ministers , speaking to the Ministers to create awareness that this could
happen to any woman, to lodge a Magistrate's Complaint and to attend court
almost every month to prevent my case from being dismissed, to have to rely
on my community networks to arrange meetings with the Station Inspector and
Superintendent to alert them of the security threat to the school and to me,
then I think that my case would have been dismissed a long time ago.

*Emotional and Physical Cost*

Cyber harassment inflicts unique harms to women's physical and emotional
well-being. Posts providing home addresses alongside the suggestion that
they have rape fantasies or should be raped have led to offline stalking and
rape in some countries. Female victims of cyber harassment fear that it is
just going to be a matter of time for these online threats of sexual
violence against them to be realized.

In cyber harassment, women's emotional distress often produces physical
symptoms such as panic attacks, depression and sometimes suicide. We have
read cases or saw the news where people committed suicide over cyber
harassment. Very often, we might have thought this happens in other
countries, well, these threats occur here in Singapore as well.

In my case due to the threat and shock of being subjected to such cyber
harassment as well as trying to fight it alone by "constantly pursuing" the
law enforcement agencies to do something about this perpetrator and to stop
him along with juggling with my school workload as it happened during the
year-end results processing week, I suffered a cardiac arrest. My
cardiologist had to give me an 8 day MC and I was fitted with a 24 hour ECG
machine to monitor my heart. My blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels
and I lost 5 kg in a span of 3 days.

Despite my health condition, I still worked on the case on my own as I had
to call IDA InfoComm to help me and to "pressure" my Investigation Officer
to track the IP address which was given to me by a local Systems
Administrator as he is the only one who could refer my case to CID Cyber
Crime Unit. While on the 25 hour ECG machine, I met the Minister, station
inspector and DSP of the police division where I filed the police report to
have them to do something to apprehend this person as he visited my home
ignoring a direct order from the police not to. I also had to instruct the
school via phone to take my personal details from my schools' official
website as the perpetrator was inciting men to check the school website and
to have them to identify my female pupils whom I taught.

It is not surprise that when my cardiologist received my ECG results, it was
not positive at all.

It was not so much of because of the fear that was caused by cyber
harassment but it was mainly because I could not get help or protection
anywhere as a woman in the face of rape threats and a teacher trying to
protect her female pupils from being sexually assaulted that caused me to
have a cardiac arrest.

The stress of having to fight this alone without legal aid that took its
brunt on my health.

*Economic Costs*

Cyber harassment undermines women's abilities to achieve their professional
goals by preventing them form working to their optimal capacity. I believe
that this is primarily due to the lack in support and legal aid form law
enforcement agencies in helping women to fight against cyber harassment that
causes women to channel a huge amount of their time, energy and resources on
their part just to have their complaints hear and their cases acted upon
promptly. As a result, they are unable to focus effectively on their work
due to the demanding task of having to ensure their own personal security
and convincing the authorities of employing their resources to help them
"fend off potential sexual attackers."

I had to leave my job of 6 years as a teacher to fight this case all the
way. It was a very difficult decision for me as I love my job and it has
always been a passion of mine to teach. However, after receiving threatening
phone calls to my direct extension line in the staffroom and office of
respondents detailing what they were going to do to my female pupils and
myself in "in the school's toilets" and having the staff from the previous
schools at which I taught in the duration of my 6 year stint as a teacher
asking colleagues who were my friends whether the dummy Facebook profile of
me advertising for sex was true ( My ex pupils from my previous schools
accessed the page as they were looking to add me as a friend during the
March holidays to keep in touch with me. My real Facebook page was
deactivated to prevent it from being hacked. My pupils informed my
colleagues of it.) and of parents calling my principal asking what kind of a
teacher I was, I decided to leave my job and focus my energy, time and
effort to clear my name from this online defamation and to create awareness
to people especially to women and children of online safety.

It was clear to me that there was an absence of awareness on the subject of
online safety and a platform/channel for victims of cyber harassment
especially women to seek redress as my experience demonstrated to me that
this crime is being trivialized in Singapore for it not to be addressed.

*Loss of future job opportunities*

In the age where people conduct business, extend their social networks and
find jobs in the Internet, one's online profile and reputation reigns
supreme. The virtual word is real and the real world, well, has become
virtual. [As it can be seen from above where teachers who had known me for
years still wanted to believe the online profile]

Cyber harassment harms women's careers especially because employers nowadays
rely on search engines to collect intelligence on job applicants and
negative postings about a woman may suggest that she attracts unwanted
controversy, causing employers who use Google results in accessing
candidates to interview or hire someone else.

Employers may decline to interview or hire female victims of cyber
harassment not because they believe the malicious postings but because it is
simply easier to hire individuals who do not come with such baggage.

The perpetrator in my case created a fake profile on me on Google profiles
as a teacher advertising for sexual services. He also posted the similar ad
in many of the online job agencies such as Linked In as a systematic attack
from preventing me from getting employed anywhere. His aim was to destroy my
current and future prospects of employment not just in Singapore but
anywhere in the world.

Not only did I leave my job to fight this case but now until my case is
addressed by the law enforcement agencies in my country, am unable to find
employment anywhere. Due to the absence of prompt action on part of the law
enforcement agencies in terms of aid, which costs that I am incurring are
increasing with time.

First my name gets stolen, then my job is gone, next will be my modesty then
what next? My life? I need to reiterate that the perpetrator's identity is
known to all the law enforcement agencies (involved with the investigation)
in my country.

*Psychological Costs*

Many a times during the course of my experience with cyber harassment, I was
"advised" by people in law enforcement agencies to just "live my life as
normal", some even suggested that I shift to another residential place or
even leave my country.

No matter how strong I am as a woman and wanting to move in a new path in my
life, I find that as a victim of cyber harassment, I am unable to do so
until the authorities help me to bring the perpetrator to justice.

In cyber harassment, women cannot escape harassment on third party sites
because employers and social contacts (old and new) will likely to see them
and ask them about the harassment (like how the teachers in my previous
schools asked my social contacts about it). In this sense, cyber attacks are
unavoidable. In the same way that society would not trivialize sexual
harassment in the workplace, law enforcement agencies in Singapore should
not ignore rape threats that terrorize victims that force them to seclusion.

Most of the time I was made to not only feel but to accept that I brought
this upon myself. My Investigation Officer in an attempt to trivialize the
threat to my security, asked me "But you were friends once right?" More than
often I had to explain how I knew this person; how I met him rather than
addressing what he did and is doing is wrong.

This person is not my boyfriend, husband or relative. He needed help in
getting a job and I being involved in community work used my community
networks wanted to help him to get one. I cannot even get a Police
Protection Order nor have the court to have an injunction against him to
ensure my safety. I am left to my own devices to protect myself.

Do I have to spend the rest of my life proving my innocence and explaining
to the respondents who visit my home that I am not the person who chatted
with them online for sexual services? Do I have to live in constant fear of
being raped or sexually assaulted? When can I move on? When can I have my
justice? When can I have my name and identity restored to me from the person
who not only stole it but desecrated it?

In this digital age where our lives are inexplicable linked to cyber space.
Unless women are willing to forgo the internet's economical, political and
social opportunities, they cannot walk way from our wired environment
without paying a high price.

Even if I were to go offline, online rape threats, sexually demeaning
comments and damaging statements stay online accessible to anyone searching
my name, unless the law enforcement agencies apprehend the culprit and have
him to remove these postings by holding him accountable by the Law.
*
Women's Rights take a step backwards in the digital age?*

How is the lack or absence of criminalizing cyber harassment different from
the earlier ages' trivialization of domestic violence and workplace sexual
harassment? Online abuse does not stay centered in cyber space as you have
seen in my case.

Employers, clients and social contacts see the rape threats, lies and
privacy invasions in Google searches of female victims' names. Women may
lose job opportunities, social connections and her freedom of movement and
speech.

I was asked to pursue a civil defamation suit which would have an initial
start off cost of $10k, to seek legal redress. Is this the price of
reclaiming my name, of being a law-abiding citizen? Or is this the price I
have to pay to protect my chastity and modesty from being outraged?

Welcome to the 21st century, my dear friends, where a woman (in Singapore
that is) has to pay a price in monetary terms to reclaim her dignity,
identity and to protect her modesty from rape.

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