Jan Moolman

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) - like radio, mobile phones and the Internet - have changed the way we live and work. The speed, reach and ease with which we are able to communicate, share information and connect with each other has created opportunities to overcome the boundaries of location, language and distance.

ICTs are also changing the ways women experience and respond to violence. On the one hand, technologies have helped perpetrators of violence to harass, exert control and even inflict harm through mobile devices, spy software or email tampering. At the same time, women’s organisations and networks are using online resources, websites, and chatrooms to document and share experiences, mobilise support for specific actions and develop global action strategies to combat violence against women and girls.

Over the past five years, the Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking and Support Programme (APCWNSP) has been working to understand the interconnections between violence against women and ICTs.

We began this work in response to reports of women being harassed online and growing concerns about the harm that the Internet is causing for women. We began to document women's experiences of violence as they related to ICTs because we wanted more women’s rights organisations to take control of technology, and use it in their work to end violence against women. We also wanted to develop an understanding among governments and policy makers about the intersection of gender and information and communication policy, particularly how it relates to violence against women.

So how are ICTs changing the way women experience violence? Our partners in the Philippines have identified three characteristics of ICTs impact the way women experience violence.

The first characteristic they describe as automation – which relates particularly to stalking and surveillance. The surveillance and policing of women's movements and bodies is not new. It is a tactic used to control, silence and regulate women's behaviour – whether it is used by intimate partners or governments. In offline situations, for example within a violent relationship, a partner would have to physically break into a woman's home to gather information or have someone follow her. The automation that ICTs have enabled means that it is possible to track women via the technologies they use. Our work in Asia, Africa and Latin America has uncovered a number of examples of this automation.

Mobile service providers in a number of countries offer the option of tracking another mobile phone. In Malaysia and South Africa, advertising is directed at parents who are concerned about their children's safety. Using geo-location technology, companies are able to track the location of cellphone users on their network. The implications of this for women - who are either trying to leave abusive situations or are seeking help - can be dangerous and even deadly.

Abusive partners are also known to check their partner's cellphones for short messages or SMSs – which, given the low cost, is much more popular than voice calls – and monitor social networking activity for signs of what they believe is 'inappropriate' behaviour. They do simple things like checking browser history and logging into personal accounts to monitor activity.

The second characteristic of ICTs that has implications for violence against women is what is referred to in the Philippines as 'action at a distance' particularly it relates to sexual harassment.

In offline spaces, sexual harassment can be identified as spoken words, actions and inappropriate touching that make the victims feel uncomfortable. The perpetrator can be immediately identified because they are 'seen' and the actions are sometimes witnessed, allowing victims to lay charges and seek redress. While still a fuzzy and problematic area in many countries, there is at least a legal and policy framework in place.

But bring in the notion of 'action at a distance' and the identification of and ability to take action against the harasser becomes much more difficult. They can be anywhere in the world while producing and distributing messages and/ or images which make their victim feel uncomfortable, harassed and violated. It is difficult to locate them, confirm their identities and take action and seek redress.

In a survey carried out for APC in Pakistan, approximately 94 percent of women respondents had received harassing calls and messages from men they did not know. In fact, repeated calls from strangers are so common that most women had even stopped being bothered by them. One in 10 women received threats from strangers and in one case the woman received death threats and decided to leave Pakistan.

In India, Delhi police note that of all cybercrime cases reported almost half are filed by women who discover their faces morphed onto pornographic images and posted online, usually accompanied by a personal phone number and an invitation for strangers to call. In South Africa, girls and young women using the mobile social networking platform 'Mxit' report of consistent harassment.

The third way in which ICTs are implicated in violence against women is the 'propagation' through the distribution of photographs, videos and other images. Previously this required a videographer or photographer, and expensive printing and distribution costs. Now, the proliferation of mobile phones with built-in camera's means everyone can be a paparazzi! The distribution of material can also be done at little or no cost through Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites.

In 2008, a teenage Argentinean girl was videoed fellating her boyfriend. The video ends as she opens her eyes and strikes the cell phone from the boy's hands. The video later circulated widely in the secondary school they both attended. Because they were in identifiable school uniform, the school suspended both children. The girl was sanctioned despite the fact that she seemingly had not given her consent to be filmed.

In Cambodia sex video clips on CDs can be easily bought from the side of the road and in public places. These 40-minute CDs cost less than a dollar and they feature videos of young women and men shot by phone for their personal use. The clips have been obtained and sold without the knowledge of the people filmed.

Clearly, ICTs are definitely changing the landscape of violence against women. Cyberspace has become yet another arena where women need to defend and claim their rights. The unequal power relations that fuel violence against women in the offline world are mimicked online. Our struggles for dignity, equality and freedom continue, simply in another space.

However, ICTs are also being used strategically to fight violence against women and advance women’s rights. With our partners, we are building the capacity of women’s rights activists and organisations to document abuses in ways that emphasise the experiences and voices of survivors and anti-VAW activists and raise awareness about VAW in powerful ways.

In South Africa and Pakistan survivors of violence and activists working to end VAW have made digital stories about their experiences and are training others to do the same. Using simple technologies they are producing powerful stories in local languages reflecting local contexts, which they and others are using in their local and global campaigning and awareness raising work.

Women’s rights organisations have built their understanding of issues related to VAW and ICT and are beginning to interrogate national ICT policies and processes with this in mind. In Malaysia, our partners are working to influence the content of the country’s media and communications code by insisting that its revision process consider CEDAW’s provisions. In South Africa Women’sNet is arguing against a proposed bill to ban Internet pornography, arguing that from experience censorship of this kind is used to police women’s sexuality and limit access to information about rights. Another example is in Cambodia where the Open Institute has effectively lobbied the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to recognise ICTs as an important aspect of the implementation of the country’s National Action Plan to Prevent Gender Violence.

ICTs can be used by abusers to deepen their control - and by survivors of violence to connect to help and by women’s rights defenders to inform, denounce and strategise to end violence. What will you do with them?

Jan Moolman is MDG3 Project Coordinator for the Women's Networking Support Programme at the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).