Cyber violence against women is on the rise yet many countries' laws still do not have ways of addressing it in part because of the nature of the 'crimes' involved.
The fact that cyber violence happens virtually rather than face-to-face can make it more difficult to take action on it for any of the following reasons:
- There may not be any physical evidence that it is happening for a forensic analysis, for instance, especially if it's in chat rooms that don't log messages
- It may be difficult to link abusive behaviour to actual known people if perpetrators are using screen names
- The violence may be directed at online representations of women, which themselves may be degrading or visually violent, rather than known or actual individual women
However it would be a profound mistake to suggest that the line between the real and the virtual is as firm as the above suggest. For example, while the personas in online community forums are virtual and their acts in turn are carried out digitally, the motivations behind the acts are not virtual and nor are all of the implications as the Second Life 'virtual rape' incident demonstrated. In fact, as this article in Wired discusses, the sense of violation and trauma from a virtual rape are not only real, but are intricately related to the fact that participating in online communities requires a level of psychological engagement that is higher precisely because physical relations are removed.
There are also a number of ways in which online violence interacts with and reinforces offline violence and vice-versa as Shariff and Gouin discuss in their extremely revealing paper (pdf) on the subject of cyber bullying in schools. Importantly, their research has found that girls and women are the primary targets for cyber bullying and gender and sexual harassment are the most prevalent forms of such bullying.
The virtual and the real are also linked as a result of the ways the former is used to facilitate violence in the latter. For instance, in an article on ICTs and violence against women, AWID outlines how perpetrators of domestic violence have monitored their partners' internet usage and telephone communications as well as using GPS (global positioning systems) to track their partners. Cyberstalking is not only real, it led to Valarie Sparacio's murder.
Bringing perpetrators of cyber violence to justice is an ongoing challenge. The fact that it is easier to preserve anonymity online makes it difficult to 'catch' someone in the act. Indeed, the relative immunity to being identified is one reason that those who would otherwise not participate or who would usually be more restrained can be found to be perpetrating some of the grossest abuses. In addition, the nature of the abuse involved can make it more difficult to prove that someone has been attacked. For example, some would argue that a person could simply exit a forum if they felt that they were being unwillingly pursued by an online persona.
In an attempt to redress the balance, a number of projects that use ICTs to eliminate violence against women have emerged, including this blog. Take back the tech, which Jessica profiled on Monday, is an excellent example of such a project, with links to many other fascinating online initiatives including one in India, one in South Africa and one in New Mexico. There's also a relatively new blog for survivors in the UK. Add your voice to the effort by commenting on this post below.