Educating parents key to stopping online harassment
Educating parents should be a major part of preventing online harassment of women, speakers said at a roundtable yesterday.
Bangla daily Prothom Alo, in collaboration with Take Back the Tech and Bangladesh Open Source Network (BDOSN) organised the event on “The reality of women’s safety on social media and solutions” at CA Bhaban yesterday.
Adiba Sultana (not her real name), shared her story of being harassed online in 2016. “I was further harassed by police at the local station when I went for help.”
“Our parents must be made aware of such harassment, because when this happened with me, parents of the perpetrator supported their son and threatened my parents,” she added.
Abul Hossain, project director of the government’s Multi-Sectoral Programme on Violence against Women said that if anyone faces harassment on social media, they can contact the national toll-free helpline 109. “We usually help them by referring the cases to the Cyber Security and Crime Division of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime [CTTC] of police, and another private company that works on the issue.”
Dr BM Mainul Hossain, associate professor of Institute of Information Technology at Dhaka University, said parents teach ethics to children at an age when they have no chance of doing anything unethical. Educational institutions should teach ethics to students as they grow up.
Syed Nasirullah, senior assistant commissioner of CTTC, urged social media users to be wary of the perils of oversharing.
DU professor Dr Lafifa Jamal; and Mahbuba Sultana, coordinator of Take Back the Tech were present at the event moderated by Munir Hassan, head of Prothom Alo’s Youth Programme.
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