Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence Unit, Su­per­in­ten­dent Claire Guy-Al­leyne, has called for bet­ter laws to pro­tect women on­line. She told a vir­tu­al town­hall meet­ing that there has been an in­crease in cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, specif­i­cal­ly black­mail­ing of women by ex-part­ners.

Guy-Al­leyne is al­so call­ing for laws to change the term child pornog­ra­phy to child sex­u­al abuse videos.

The town­hall meet­ing, host­ed by the Min­istry of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, dis­cussed dig­i­tal gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV).

Guy-Al­leyne said if the laws are not strength­ened, vic­tims will not get jus­tice.

“We need to strength­en laws and law en­force­ment ef­forts to bet­ter ad­dress these crimes and hold per­pe­tra­tors ac­count­able. This could in­clude mon­i­tor­ing of on­line ac­tiv­i­ty, the es­tab­lish­ment of spe­cialised task forces, and harsh­er penal­ties for those con­vict­ed of GBV or child abuse of­fences,” she said.

She added: “We al­so need to in­vest in re­sources and sup­port for sur­vivors. For ex­am­ple, in­vest in more shel­ters, we need more fi­nan­cial sup­port, coun­selling ser­vices, and le­gal aid, just to name a few.”

Guy-Al­leyne said al­though there is no Cy­ber­crime Act, there are laws un­der which per­pe­tra­tors can be charged, in­clud­ing:

• The mis­use of tele­phone fa­cil­i­ties and false telegrams un­der Chap­ter 1102 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act

• Ha­rass­ment un­der Chap­ter 1108 of the Of­fence Against a Per­son Act

• Chap­ter 1117 un­der the Com­put­er Mis­use Act

• A se­ries of of­fences un­der the Chil­dren Act, in­clud­ing child pornog­ra­phy and ex­pos­ing a child to pornog­ra­phy.

She urged vic­tims to make re­ports to the po­lice.

“Many vic­tims are re­luc­tant to re­port these crimes and we can imag­ine why. The vic­tims or sur­vivors feel very ashamed or em­bar­rassed, and if we look at what is hap­pen­ing on the in­ter­net to­day, we will see some in­ter­net trolls who have all kinds of man­ners of evil to say to sur­vivors and vic­tims when some of these videos hit the me­dia or pub­lic,” she said.

“A lot of times, sur­vivors feel that they wouldn’t be be­lieved, but I want to as­sure the TTPS be­lieves you, and the TTPS would in­ves­ti­gate these mat­ters.”

Guy-Al­leyne ad­vised par­ents to be more aware of their chil­dren’s on­line and of­fline ac­tiv­i­ties and said adults should be more cau­tious with their on­line pres­ence.

Dr An­drea Kan­neh from the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion shared in­ter­net safe­ty tips to pre­vent cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, in­clud­ing man­ag­ing the amount of per­son­al in­for­ma­tion shared on so­cial me­dia and cre­at­ing strong pass­words.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh spoke about the ef­fects of cy­ber­crimes on the vic­tims’ and at­tack­ers’ men­tal health and Dr Hazel Oth­el­lo, head of the Men­tal Health Unit at the Min­istry of Health, shared re­sources to as­sist abuse sur­vivors.