With the rise of internet, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, women are twice as much as men fell victim to cybercrimes.
Data from the police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) shows some 67.9 percent of the cybercrime victims are women while police alone receiving between 50 to 60 complaints daily.
Victims said receiving something abusive over the internet becomes a regular experience.
Tasnia Rahman, a university student, told Bangladesh Post, “Nowadays, it becomes common to experience abusive comment or message on the internet.”
“Not just I, my friends face too,” she said.
Wishing anonymity, another victim echoed Tasnia saying women face more harassment online than man.
Many people inbox sexts in social media, mostly in Facebook, then deactivate their accounts as soon as someone try to find out the culprit, she said adding it’s too much “disgusting”.
Experts said the country sees a rise in the cybercriminals despite the enactment of the Digital Security Act.
Even though the law enforcement agencies set up separate cells to check the cybercrimes the situations still remain mostly out of control, they added.
Emphasising digital awareness, crime analyst Mokhlesur Rahaman told Bangladesh Post, “Our people lack basic digital literacy in addition to inadequate resources, skilled manpower and institutional infrastructure.”
“Initiative for institutional capacity building on cybercrime should have been taken much earlier. Besides, exemplary punishment must be taken to reduce online crimes,” he added.
Zia Rahman, professor of criminology at the University of Dhaka (DU), said currently, the volume of cybercrime has increased as lifestyle become more dependent on internet.
“Cybercrime becomes a growing trend in the country. We must be aware while sharing something or doing a work on internet,” he said adding it is a matter of concern that prominent people of the society become victim of cybercrime regularly.
If anyone falls prey to internet crime, she/he must inform the authorities concerned so that law enforcers can act quickly, said Zia Rahman, who is the chairman of DU’s criminology department.
Currently, as many as 13 kinds of activities are considered as cybercrime offence under the existing laws.
These include complaints on family feuds, marital issues, violent and hateful comments, uploading intimate videos and pictures on YouTube, creating fake accounts, hacking IDs by obtaining passwords or secret numbers, mobile banking, e-commerce, Debit and credit card fraud, online MLM (multi-level marketing), online question paper leaks and online gambling.
Referring to the number of female victims, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of CID's Cyber Police Centre Md Shah Alam told Bangladesh Post they have been working to fight cybercrime for long.
“Whenever we receive a complaint from a female victim, we use our state-of-art technology to detect the perpetrators," he added.
No matter how much police do their duties people must be aware of internet activities to learn what constitute a crime on the internet under the laws, Shah Alam said.
