Brief summary of presentation of information made

Fangchun Chu (Women in Digital Initiative Chairperson)

Framework of Gender-based Cyber Violence 

• Violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects woman disproportionately, using contemporary forms of violence occurring on the internet and digital spaces.

Prevalence of Online Violence against Women by the economist’s intelligence unit, 2020

• 98% in Middle East, 91% in Latin America and Caribbean, 90% in Africa , 76% in North America, 88% in Asia Pacific, and 74% in Europe.

Framework of Gender-Based Cyber Violence in Taiwan

• Organised as privacy violations, abuse of images, other sexual harassment and assault, ICT-related human-trafficking, and hate speech and behaviour. Two or more kinds of these cyber violence are able to be shown at the same time.
• Gender-based Privacy Violations are: doxing, deepfake, cyber flashing, virtual reality groping, upskirting, hacking/stealing data, cyber stalking, IoT-related intimate partner violence, identity theft/impersonation
• Getting more development of IoT, there appears more digital violence by remote controlling smart appliances, smart home systems, and wearable items.
• Motivation of the perpetrators: Uncertainty (35%), revenge (16%), For getting back together(16%), extorting money(7%), sextortion(5%), showing 0ff(2%), others(19%)
• Platforms of Distribution: Facebook (32%), porn sites (29%), Line(27%)
• There’s necessity for legislation to protect victim and obligate to remove private images online, and human trafficking of women using technology is common.

Chiajung Hsieh (Taiwan Nurses Association, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences)

Using real cases to highlight online sexual harassment and gender-based online hate speech

• Taiwan Nurses Association launched a nationwide movement to defend nurses’ dignity fight against online sexual harassment, and reject gender discrimination, and the movement rallied roughly 5,000 people to fight for nurses’ dignity and the elimination of online sexual harassment for 3 days.

Lessons learned and Conclusion:

• penalties and regulations must be introduced to deter discrimination against specific groups and compensate for criminal law loopholes.
• legal agencies can also assume a more active role to ensure the enforcement of the CEDAW.
• All people deserve to live in a fair just environment, both physically and virtually.

Seonghui Seo (Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Reponses Canter Representative)

The Telegram Sexual Exploitation Case and The Legislative Situation in Korea

1. The “Nth Room” Case and the Composition of Cyber Sexual Violence:

The perpetrators create and operate groups on Telegram and threaten women including juveniles to shoot sexual exploitation videos, and the videos are even sold through the virtual secret groups. The "Nth room” case showed structure of sexual commercialization. The videos without permission spread out through cloud, social media, or porn websites. While these make profits through the distribution process, its structure has been easily industrialised. The victims have to pay money to delete the videos via digital funeral parlour which was proved as a part of perpetrators. All of the criminals were in early twenties, and it means anyone can become a pimp to get money quickly through digital platforms. The perpetrators’ sexual desire has changed to hate speech and sexual exploitation.

2. The NGO’s response to the Telegram exploitation case

• NGOs linked up together and established the committee in January 2020
• Provide common supports to victims, fight for issues, and discuss policy and legislative amendment. 

3. The Amendment after Nth Room case

• Exemption law about sexual exploitation aiming at children and juveniles was amended to punish the criminals who spread, rent, provide, or public exhibit the filmed video or photos
• This case strengthened and subdivided the penalties of sexual violence, crime and legal terms were changed from obscene material productions to criminals associated with sexual exploitation
• The new article includes the criminals who possess, purchase, download, watch the film of children and juveniles target.

4. Conclusion 

• In Korea, digital crime based sexual violence is serious, but after feminism reboot, many of women led the government action, and the change has just begun. 

Gail Dines, Ph.D.,Dr (Culture Reframed President) Digital Violence Against Women and Girls.

A. Why is child pornography now called child sexual abuse images?

• Children can’t consent to pornography
• All children at risk by distribution and consumption
• Children are harmed on multiple level by production

B. Pornhub Statistics 2019

• 42 billion visits (up from 33 billion in 2018)
• 962 searched per second
• uploaded 4.79 million new videos
• created over 1 million hours of new content
• 100% contained at least one aggressive act if both physical and verbal aggression were combined

C. What is “Consent” in a patriarchal system?

• Porn is usually not considered violence against women because they consent.
• There are economic, ideological and legal motives to separate “consensual” porn
• from non-consensual porn • Women consent under conditions of opportunity and constraint: poverty, racism,
• histories of sexual abuse, histories of substance abuse, being pimped out, sexual fraud, socialisation of women and girls in patriarchy
• The documentation, monetization, distribution, and consumption of violence done to women by the porn industry reinforces, legitimises, and celebrates women as a subordinate sex-class in patriarchy

D. How we can change toxic culture?

Short term Goals

Governmental legislation that:

• defines women sexual abuse images as non-state torture
• hold sites accountable for the violence done to women and children in production and consumption
• withdrawal of all credit card payment system
• end to the corporate social responsibility approach of self-regulation by porn sites o enforce above legislation

Long term Goal

• regulate the porn industry out of existence!

What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?

The Salvation Army have statements and action plans, and system for anti-human trafficking, but we still have a lot of barriers like prejudice and indifference of people. Sharing of the resources about digital crime associated with sexual trafficking education for both of boys and girls will be effective to prevent and change the prejudice and crime.

Web links for more information

https://www.culturereframed.org/board/

http://www.sisters.or.kr/eng/load.asp?subPage=450

Tags: SDG10: Reduced Inequalities, SDG5: Gender Equality, SDG3: Good Health and Well-Being