This presentation by Dr. Debarati Halder outlines cyber-crimes against women and available legal and other remedies against them. This was presented at a Colloquium on Digital Media and Gender Violence on December 9, 2013, in Chennai, as part of the 2013 Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence.

1. Remedies for CyberCrimes Against Women:
some thoughts
Dr. Debarati Halder
Advocate & Managing Director
Centre for Cyber victim Counseling (CCVC)
Tirunelveli
www.cybervictims.org

2. • Cyber crime against
women is :
“Crimes targeted against
women with a motive to
intentionally harm the
victim, using modern
telecommunication
networks such as the
internet (chat rooms,
emails, notice boards and
groups) and mobile
phones(SMS/MMS)”.
Debarati Halder & K.
Jaishankar(2012)
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

3. How cyber
victimization affects
the concept of
violence against
women?
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

4.  portrayal of women
in the most
indecent manner.
 Stalking
 Harassing
messages
 Workplace
harassment with
digital aide
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

5. Available legal remedies for women
and young girls for indecent portrayal

•
Sections 67, 67a of the Information
technology Act,2000(amended in
2008)
Section 66a of the Information
Technology Act (amended in 2008)
Section 66C(punishment for identity
theft), 66D(punishment for cheating
by impersonation) along with 67B,
66E of the IT Act offer remedy.
.Section 292,293,294 IPC




Section 354C IPC (inserted by
Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013
Section 509 IPC
Section 499,500 IPC
S.s 3 &4 of The Indecent Represent
of Women (prohibition) Act
12/25/13
•
Usage of children for creation of
content(S.13, Protection of children
from sexual offences act, S.67B (c) I T
Act.
(i) Production, storing, distribution of the
content(S.11 (ii) & (iii)
(ii) Sexual harassment in the course of
creation of content S.67B (d) IT Act
and S.11 Protection of children from
sexual offences Act
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

6. Online stalking
• In one word, when ‘following’ is added by Mens rea to
commit harm and it is successfully digitally carried out,
we can say cyber stalking has happened (Halder &
Jaishankar,2010).
• S.354D of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 also
addresses stalking by man and includes the following
acts:
 Following/contacting/trying to contact repeatedly
 Monitoring a woman either physically or online
 Watching/spying a woman
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

7. Remedies offered by the laws
 prevention of the crime
 Introducing new rights
 Expanding the scope of the independent duty
of the police
 Retributive jurisprudential measures
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

8. Where does law/criminal justice
mechanism fail?
 Attitude of the victim
 Patriarchal society
 Fear of revealing past history
 Media and privacy issues
 Preconceived notion about the police and
criminal justice system
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

9. The other option ?
 Liability of the website
 Forms of reporting
 Usage of police-social media channel
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

10. Self protecting measures
• Controlled data contribution
• Closing the doors by effective password
choosing.
• Expanding friend-circle with prior information
• Usage of multiple email ids
• Self detection of suspicious accounts
• Willingness to report a crime and not
encourage hacking.
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

11. Building up effective friend circle
online
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

12. Counselling through “Therapeutic
Jurisprudence” way
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

13. Awareness
Spreading awareness through
two blogs : “Cyber crime against
women in India and the laws”©
(http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.in/
) &
“Cyber victimization”
©(http://cybervictims.blogspot.in/)
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder

14. Enjoy the internet era
 Write to us for any help @
ccvcindia@cybervictims.org or
ccvcindia@gmail.com
 Call us @ 09894700935
Dr. Debarati Halder
Advocate & Managing Director
Centre for Cyber victim Counseling
Tirunelveli
www.cybervictims.org
12/25/13
Online Victimisation of Women: Trends &
Issues by Debarati Halder