Daily Times

LAHORE: The Cyber Harassment Helpline has so far received more than 750 complaints about harassment since its launch in December last year.

According to the data available with Daily Times, Pakistan’s first harassment helpline has received around 763 complaints made in the form of phone calls, emails and Facebook messages from December 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017.

Among them 569 complaints were received through phone calls, 100 through emails and 94 through Facebook messages. However, around 80.9 percent were new complaints and remaining 19.1 percent were follow-up calls. Complaints were registered regarding unsolicited messages, hacked accounts or devices, fake profile, blackmailing, non-consensual usage of information, online stalking, gender-based bullying, financial frauds, photo-shopped pictures and others.

According to the report, Facebook is the platform through which individuals faced the highest amount of harassment followed by other social media platforms such as Instagram, IMO, Whatsapp, Twitter and others.

The geographical distribution of the data shows that the majority of complaints were received from Punjab (44 percent) followed by Sindh (19.1 percent), 8.7 percent from Islamabad alone, 5 percent from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 1.6 percent from Balochistan.

According to monthly breakdown of calls, the CHH received 95 complaints in December 2016, 159 in January 2017, 84 in February, 77 in March, 98 in April, while 56 calls were received in May.

Talking to Daily Times, Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) Executive Director Nighat Dad, who is also an advocate, said that the helpline was getting the response for what it was made. She said, initially, the helpline received around 20 to 25 complaints per day but the number soared with the passage of time.

She said that the number of online harassment calls saw an increase after murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch. “Sometimes it becomes difficult to handle so many calls.”

When asked about the idea behind the launch of the helpline, she said that loads of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were working for women’s rights but none of the civil society organisations was working to report or cater to online cases of harassment. “So a helpline was launched where victims of online harassment could easily report their ordeal.”

Initially, she said that complainants were not willing to share information but after assurances by the DRF that their credential would not be shared with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) they broke the taboo and started revealing their information.

“Most of the women don’t want to get their complaints registered with the FIA due to family pressure and societal constraints. We are working to coax female victims to get their complaints registered. We also assure also victims that their information will not be shared with the FIA,” she added.

Nighat said that there was a dire need to make social media users aware of laws, which could help prevent them from posting something weird or sharing other’s information on social media websites.

Launched in December last year by the DRF, the service claims to provide legal advice, digital security support, psychological counselling and a referral system to victims.

Published in Daily Times, July 25^th 2017.