Growing Cyber Harassment in Pakistan

Growing Cyber Harassment in Pakistan

Adil Ali   04 August

It is estimated that there are over 37.5 million 3G, 4G/LTE subscribers in Pakistan at the moment. This dramatic rise in the use of internet technology has virtually reduced the world to  a Global Village. Though there are some challenges in this new virtual space and one such challenge is the striking rise in cyber crimes across Pakistan.

Cyber Harassment is one such form of cyber crimes which is getting more common in our society.  In this regard, psychologists of Global Medical Services Rawalpindi (Mr. Adil Ali & Ms. Ruhma Shahid) took the initiative and did an awareness program on PTV World on August 1st, 2017.



CYBER HARASSMENT

Cyber Harassment is the use of Information and Communications Technology to harass, control, manipulate or habitually disparage a child, adult, business or group without a direct or implied threat of physical harm.  It is commonly understood as behavior that disturbs or upsets, and it is characteristically repetitive.

There are many different types of harassment over the internet, some of which are given below:

Cyber Bullying:
This  include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles. Messages and images can be posted anonymously and distributed quickly to a very wide audience and can be difficult and sometimes impossible to trace the source or deleting inappropriate or harassing messages, texts, and pictures.

Cyber Stalking:
This includes the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual. It may include false accusations or attempts to defame the victim. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, or gathering information that may be used to threaten, embarrass or harass.

Spreading False Information about an Individual:
This includes sharing or posting false information about someone on social media that damages their reputation.

Hate speech:

This includes using abusive language, inappropriate comments based on religion, ethnicity or any other classification.

Leaking or publishing an individual’s personally identifiable information:
This includes publishing someone's identifiable information such name, date of birth, pictures or personal information such as medical conditions online.

Accessing and dissemination of private data without consent
This includes accessing someone's private information and sharing it online without their permission.

Hacking Electronic Devices / Accounts:
This includes hacking someone's electronic devices, email or social media accounts with intent to monitor their activities or to post something on their behalf without their knowledge.

PAKISTAN'S CYBER CRIME LAW
On 11/08/2016, National Assembly of Pakistan passed Cyber Crime Bill in Pakistan.  According to this new law, there are punishments for all kinds of cyber harassment:

Crimes	Punishments
Spreading False Information about an Individual	Up to 3 years in Prison or up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Making /  Spreading Explicit Images or Videos of an Individual	Up to 5 Years in Prison or up to Rs. 5 Million in Fine or both
Making / Spreading Explicit Images or Videos of Minor	Up to 7 Years in Prison or up to Rs. 5 Million in Fine or both
Cyber stalking	Up to 3 Years in Jail or Up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Cyber Stalking with a Minor	Up to 5 Years in Jail and up to Rs. 10 Million in Fine
Hacking Email / phone for Stalking	Up to 3 Years in Jail or Up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Making Videos/Pics and Distributing without Consent	Up to 3 Years in Jail or Up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Hate speech	Up to 7 Years in Prison or fine or both

Two days ago, on 02/08/2017, a man who blackmailed and harassed a girl through social networking website “Facebook” has been jailed for 14 months in prison along with a fine of fine of Rs 200,000.

WHAT MOTIVATES CYBER HARASSERS?
While discussing in a program World This Morning on PTV World (aired 1st Aug, 2017), Clinical Psychologist Mr. Adil Ali said that the freedom of privacy and personal anonymity that internet offers encourages many individuals to do things and say words that are generally not acceptable socially.  If there were no social norms, no rules, no regulations, no control, many of us would behave in the same way we do on the internet when we have the freedom of privacy.  Ms. Ruhma Shahid added that it is the persona that we wear that makes us civilized human beings.

HOW MAJORITY OF WOMEN REACT?
According to a study, 70% of Pakistani women afraid of posting their pictures online due to lack of safety. Cases of stolen Facebook profile pictures are routine and in some cases have forced women to completely stop using social media sites and they in fact get blamed from their families for doing it.

Not quite surprisingly, there is so much stigma around it that majority of women choose to stay quiet for the honor of their families and would refrain from seeking any kind of professional support.

CONSEQUENCES OF NOT GETTING HELP:
Not seeking help can effect the psychological well-being of victims.  According to Mr. Adil Ali, victims could develop different mental health issues including depression, anxiety and PTSD to name a few.

WHAT CAN VICTIMS DO:

Realize that its NOT your fault:
There should be no threat to family's honor if someone bullies you or harasses you online. You have the right to go online, create your profiles use all the social media websites.  Don't ever blame yourself.

Block the Harasser:
There are blocking options available to users on almost all websites and social media platforms.

Report to the platform:
Don't forget to share your bad experience with the platform you had it on.  For instance if you are on Facebook, report it to the Facebook authorities.

Seek Help from Local Authorities:
Report the incident to National Response Center for Cyber Crime by dialing the Cyber Rescue Help line at 9911.  Or call the recently launched Pakistan's first Cyber Harassment Hotline at 0800-39393.

Seek Psychological Help:
Its never easy to deal with such issues all alone.  Your family and social support network is going to be a huge help for you but its always good to see a psychologist, or counselor for help.  Psychologists or Counselors can help the victims in getting a psychologically safe environment to discuss their harassment and to take necessary steps for their safety.

CONTACT FOR SUPPORT:
If your are a victim of cyber harassment and need psychological support, feel free to contact Global Medical Services in Rawalpindi at (051) 4848934-36 or see any other psychologists in your area.

Bullying in Pakistan

Bullying in Pakistan

Adil Ali   08 December

Being subjected to some kind of verbal or physical or even social disturbance is not something that should be accepted nor is it something normal that happen for every person during his/her lifetime, yet it is some form that might cause any person to feel threatened, powerless or not accepted among his/her community, and lead that person to drop himself out of any engagements with the social life, or even worse it might lead them to try ending their lives and committing suicidal acts. Bullying in Pakistan is present since a long time, and it is increasing quickly with the appearance of new ways to bully others like the emergence of the internet that led to the appearance of cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying in Pakistan

According to a study that was done among 25 countries about cyber bullying, it was found that Pakistan does not stand at the first of the row in online bullying, yet it also takes the twenty second highest rate in cyber bullying. But children in Pakistan do have a background about cyber bullying and know what it means and how they might be subjected to it in which 6 in every 10 children said that they know something about cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying is referred to any act that is done by one person or a group of people towards another person over some type of technological tool, either mobile phones or the usage of the internet. Cyber bullying can come in the form of sending text messages, e-mails, using the social media websites such as FaceBook to share someone’s confidential information by accessing their profiles without their knowledge (hacking) like sharing their photos or some videos they already have of them. Cyber bullying can include audio messages that is sent to the victim and might leave them nothing but frightened and threatened, and the thing that is even worse than what cyber bullying is all about is the fact that it might take place at any time during the day, the bully does not have to stick to certain hours like bullying in schools and in workplaces.

With over 100 million users of smart phones in Pakistan, Pakistan has been included in the list of the fastest growing countries that are using internet which only open the doors for the fact that cyber bullying is increasing as well, yet there isn’t any legislation for cyber crimes in Pakistan. In 2007, General Pervez Musharaf introduced the Prevention of Electronic crime Ordinance (PECO) which was in order to prevent terrorist or banned groups from using the internet for using propaganda against the military and to protect female members of the Parliament who were being harassed by abusive phone calls and text messages.

Other people in Pakistan who are far from the political life complain about living in a country that suffer from the absence of law to protect them against online crimes, saying that PECO had several flaws, and many of the definitions in it were incorrect, such as for example the ordinance that was sent for the NA for ratification stated that sending indecent, provocative and ill motivated messages through e-mails and text messages was an offence and would result in 14 years of imprisonment along with the confiscation of property which was seen by a lot of people that it was too much for a minor issue, and on the other side there were no provision in PECO that tackles the issue of child pornography and intellectual property theft.

One of the main problems that results from cyber bullying in Pakistan is that the women are more involved in bullying and harassment acts more than men, with the appearance of the internet world and the girls taking over, they started knowing everything on the online world and engaging themselves in the internet world, teenage girls in Pakistan are considered “computer savvy”. The problem is that girls are not only open to the world of information and entertainment but they also know about the online sexual content. The girls in Pakistan claim that they know the dangers that result from the internet world, where 84% of the girls cited their own common sense in detecting and differentiating between the harmful and harmless acts that happens over the internet, while 51% stated that they know the difference according to their parents, and only 4% believe that nothing is ever bad on the internet because they claim that it is not a real world.

In Pakistan it seems that women are the easiest targets to be bullied online, because the National Response Center for Cyber Crimes (NR3C) does not have any legislation for cyber crimes such as hacking and online stalking, there were several incidents that faced women regarding these issues.

• The first one was of the two girls from a liberal arts college in Pakistan who decided to participate in an international sketching competition, the sketches were supposed to be of nude self portraits, so they asked a friend to photograph and send the pictures over to them via e-mail, but the secret was easily revealed because at the very same week the two girl’s e-mails were hacked and blackmailing threats started reaching them.
• Another incident was of the two female celebrities in Pakistan who reported for Bytes for all the Facebook profiles that were formed about them, and the reason behind creating such profiles was to recruit some young girls as modeling aspirations for dubious events and phony jobs. Such acts do not only affect the image of these celebrities but also make those girls at the mercy of the criminals.
• One of the main cyber bullying issues in Pakistan that threatens every girl is being sexually attacked. And according to Nabiha Meher, a Pakistani blogger who also teaches in some universities in Lahore, the family’s honor in Pakistan is usually tied to the women, if the woman in the family is sexually attacked then the whole family’s honor is attacked as well, and that’s why bullies in Pakistan play on that part by harassing women online even by sending them a threat that they will rape them.

School bullying in Pakistan

School bullying is any kind of bullying that is connected with education, meaning that it takes place within the school; it might be in the form of verbal bullying such as name calling, teasing, mocking and threatening or might be physical such as hitting, shoving, spitting, punching, stealing and damaging property, or it might take the form of social bullying such as gossiping, spreading rumors, excluding a person from a group or spreading hatred towards him in school. The children who are being bullied usually face some kinds of depression, lack of sleep, they might disengage themselves from the social life, or else they will find themselves skipping school or feeling unsafe and threatened to go.

The person who is being bullied in school is usually being picked among a large number of students because they seem different in some way whether the religion or the sex, or else it might be for another appearances such as being shy for example, some researches done even mentioned that some bullies do such acts because they are just bored and want to have fun. Studies have shown that children who are subjected to bullying acts are more likely to suffer from mental health problems such as depression, low self esteem, stress or anxiety, or else they might think about suicide.

According to a study that was done in six medical colleges in Pakistan, it was found in the 63% of the people who responded to the survey that 52% of the respondents reported that they had faced bullying or harassment during their medical education, and about 28% of them experiencing it more frequently or even every month, and 57% of the bullying acts were verbal.

Bullying at school leads to other problems that might last with the person, and because of that a lot of people consider bullying as a kind of violence, it is even estimated that 1 in every 4 children who have faced an act of bullying in elementary schools will have a criminal record at the age of 30. Bullying at schools might lead to the student losing his/her friends, or yet not having the career they always dreamed of when they finish their studies, some might even enter the career level but yet be subjected to another workplace bullying acts since they are already weak.

Some of the things that should be taken in order to avoid bullying in the schools of Pakistan:

• Ignoring the bully and walking away, that kind of act will tell the bully that the victim actually don’t care, sometimes walking away is even more better for the person than confronting and losing his/her temper. But over time the bully will find themselves getting bored because they find no responses.
• The bully is always targeting for angering the victim, and if the victim controlled his/her anger that might make the bullies lose their minds.
• The victims should never engage themselves in physical relations, because the acts of bullying usually comes out from people who consider themselves more powerful, and the victim doesn’t know what he is putting himself into, such ways will only lead to more violence in the place.
• Victims should open up themselves and talk about incidents that they faced, they should tell their teachers or parents about what they are facing in their everyday life in school. Talking can be an outlet for the fears and frustrations that are inside any person.
• Children should know how to choose their friends and peers in school; they should know who is good and who is bad.

School bullying cases in Pakistan

After the great appearance of bullying in the schools of Pakistan, several parents reported to the police about incidents that happened with their children. For example:

• The case of the 13 year old Pakistani junior high school student in Takamatsu whose father filed a criminal complaint with the police about the classmates of his son who are always bullying and injuring him.
• Another parent’s of a male Pakistani student in high school in a town in Kagawa Prefecture filed a complaint for the police because his son was being bullied and injured seriously in school. His parents said that four of his classmates were always making verbal comments about the boy because his skin color was different, and using words like “dirty skin” and telling him to go back to his country. He was also being beaten up by them.

Workplace bullying in Pakistan
Any behavior that is unprofessional and unwanted that affects the dignity of an employer is usually unacceptable in the workplace and is considered an act of bullying. Workplace bullying is when a person uses his power in an unjustifiable manner over a vulnerable colleague or an employee, which has been considered a swearing word in the professional circuits. Research analysis showed that people who are subjected to acts of bullying in their workplaces usually talk with their friends and family about the incidents and some of them even look for other jobs, while 42% talk with their colleagues about their acts, and only 9% to 18% of the affected people put a formal complaint.

According to a Pakistani business review in 2011, it was found that there is a relation between popularity and bullying in workplaces, since the person who is popular is usually loved and appreciated by his employer and colleagues, the bully usually feels jealous towards that person, which leads him doing some bullying acts towards the other person. This study showed also that in Pakistan female employers are more likely to be bullied by female bosses, while male employers are more likely to be bullied by male bosses, it was also stated that male employers are being bullied for their work performances while women are bullied for personal and moral values.

Bullying in an organization can reduce staff turnover and increase de-motivation and absences among employees, which will result in negative productivity. And because popular employers are targeted more than the others it will affect their giving in the workplace as well.

References
http://www.jpma.org.pk/full_article_text.php?article_id=2155
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003889
http://herald.dawn.com/tag/cyberbullying

H/T: No Bullying

Pakistan's first cyber harassment helpline launched today

Pakistan's first cyber harassment helpline launched today

Adil Ali   01 December

A digital rights organisation has launched Pakistan’s first cyber harassment helpline today.

The service can be reached at 0800-39393.

Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), a non-governmental organisation, is a research-based advocacy organisation focusing on information and communications technology (ICT) to support human rights, democracy and digital governance.

“DRF is launching Pakistan’s first Cyber Harassment Helpline, which will provide a free, safe, and confidential service to victims of online harassment,” the NGO said in a statement released on Friday.

The helpline will ensure provision of “legal advice, digital security support, psychological counselling and a referral system” to the victims of online harassment.

The soft launch of the helpline was held at DRF’s Hamara Internet – Ending Online Violence Against Women conference on November 28 in Islamabad.

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying

Adil Ali   01 December

This summer, American Psychologist, the official journal of the American Psychological Association, released a special issue on the topic of bullying and victimization. Bullying is, presumably, as old as humanity, but research into it is relatively young: in 1997, when Susan Swearer, one of the issue’s two editors, first started studying the problem, she was one of the first researchers in the United States to do so. Back then, only four states had official statutes against bullying behavior, and the only existing longitudinal work had come out of Scandinavia, in the seventies. After Columbine, however, the landscape changed. The popular narrative at the time held that the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had been bullied, and that idea—which has since been challenged—prompted a nationwide conversation about bullying, which researchers around the country began studying in earnest. This special issue marks one of the first attempts to systematically review what we’ve learned in the last two decades—and, especially, to explore whether and how the Internet has changed the bullying landscape. 

In some ways, bullying research has affirmed what we already know. Bullying is the result of an unequal power dynamic—the strong attacking the weak. It can happen in different ways: through physical violence, verbal abuse (in person or online), or the management of relationships (spreading rumors, humiliation, and exclusion). It is usually prolonged (most bullies are repeat offenders) and widespread (a bully targets multiple victims). Longitudinal work shows that bullies and victims can switch places: there is an entire category of bully-victims—people who are victims in one set of circumstances and perpetrators in another. Finally, emerging research demonstrates that bullying follows us throughout life. Workplace and professional bullying is just as common as childhood bullying; often, it’s just less obvious. (At work—one hopes—people don’t steal your bicycle or give you a wedgie.)

To date, no one has systematically studied how different bullying settings affect bullying behavior—whether bullying in the Northeast differs from bullying the Midwest, or whether bullying in certain cultures, neighborhoods, or professions comes with its own characteristics. What Swearer has noticed, however, in her nearly two decades of bullying research is a persistent—and seemingly fundamental—environmental distinction between urban and rural bullying. In urban and even mid-sized city environments, anonymity is possible. Even if you’re bullied in school, you can have a supportive friend group at your local pickup basketball game. And there are multiple schools and multiple neighborhoods, which means you can float from one to the other, leaving bullying behind you in the process.

By contrast, in rural settings, “There aren’t options,” Swearer said, when we spoke earlier this month. “It’s impossible to get away.” The next school may be a hundred miles distant, so you are stuck where you are. What’s more, everyone knows everyone. The problems of reporting a bully—or, if you are a bully, of becoming less of one—become much more intractable, because your reputation surrounds you, and behavioral patterns are harder to escape. “Your world becomes an isolated and small place,” Swearer says. Isolation itself, she points out, can lead to a sense of helplessness and lack of control—feelings that are associated with some of the worst, most persistent psychological problems in any population, including bullying.

In some ways, when it comes to bullying, the Internet has made the world more rural. Before the Internet, bullying ended when you withdrew from whatever environment you were in. But now, the bullying dynamic is harder to contain and harder to ignore. If you’re harassed on your Facebook page, all of your social circles know about it; as long as you have access to the network, a ceaseless stream of notifications leaves you vulnerable to victimhood. Bullying may not have become more prevalent—in fact, a recent review of international data suggests that its incidence has declined by as much as ten per cent around the world. But getting away from it has become more difficult.

The inescapability of “cyberbullying” has huge consequences not just for children but also for adults. While workplace bullying is still a new field of study, adults seem to experience bullying just as much as kids do. A 2012 study from the University of Nottingham and the University of Sheffield, in the U.K., found that eight out of ten of the three hundred and twenty adults surveyed across three different universities had been victims of cyberbullying in the last six months; about a quarter reported feeling humiliated or ignored, or being the subject of online gossip, at least once a week. The effects of adult bullying can be just as severe, if not more so, than those of childhood bullying. While students can go to their teachers if they’re being bullied, if you report your boss, you could be out of a job. And adult victims of cyberbullying tend to suffer higher levels of mental strain and lower job satisfaction than those subjected to more traditional forms of bullying. An undermining colleague can be put out of mind at the end of the day. But someone who persecutes you over e-mail, social networks, or anonymous comments is far more difficult to avoid and dismiss.

Many forms of adult bullying are uncomfortably close to the sorts of shaming behaviors outlined by Jon Ronson in his recent book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.” (Alexandra Schwartz wrote about Ronson’s book for this web site, earlier this year.) Ronson documents the rise of cyberbrigades which unite in virtual outrage, on Twitter, Reddit, or elsewhere online, to disparage someone’s words or behavior. Participants often feel that their abusive actions flow from justified outrage—but all bullies think that their behavior is justified. “We know from moral disengagement work that all bullies feel morally justified in their actions,” Swearer pointed out. Ask people why they bully, and they rarely say, “Because I can.” They say, “Because I need to.” Bullies believe they are teaching someone a lesson; they claim that their victims are, through their own actions or faults, asking for it, and that they need to be called out and corrected. “They say it’s retaliatory. ‘I just retaliated,’ “ Swearer said. “They build narratives of their behaviors.” Many of the bullies Swearer has dealt with don’t seem to have realized that what they did was bullying: they demonstrate “a lack of insight and self-awareness.” Instead, they see themselves as righteous crusaders.

In children, it’s possible to instill self-awareness about bullying through schoolwide interventions. Catherine Bradshaw, a psychologist and associate dean at the University of Virginia who studies bullying prevention, has found that the most effective approaches are multilayered and include training, behavior-modification guidelines, and systems for detailed data collection. (More, in other words, than a stray assembly or distributed book.) Unfortunately, the equivalent for adults can be hard to find. Many adult bullies hide behind the idea that bullying happens only among children. They conceive of themselves as adults who know better and are offering their hard-earned wisdom to others. The Internet makes that sort of certainty easier to attain: looking at their screens, adult bullies rarely see the impact of their words and actions. Instead, they comfortably bask in self-righteous glory. The U.K. study from 2012 found that online bystanders, too, are disengaged. Observing the actions of cyberbullies, they were less concerned than when they watched in-person bullying.

In short, the picture that’s emerged suggests that the Internet has made bullying both harder to escape and harder to identify. It has also, perhaps, made bullies out of some of us who would otherwise not be. We are immersed in an online world in which consequences often go unseen—and that has made it easier to deceive ourselves about what we are doing. The first step to preventing bullying among adults, therefore, might be simple: introspection.

Courtesy: New Yorker