UNS — The Student Executive Board (BEM) Vocational School (SV) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held a webinar on “New Era of Sexism and Sexual Harassment”, through Zoom Cloud Meeting, Saturday (17/10/2020) morning. The webinar is specifically held to discuss the rampant growth of Online-Based Gender Violence (Kekerasan Gender Berbasis Online – KGBO) due to the high intensity of social media use, especially amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which requires women to work from home.
The invited speakers in this event are Nenden Sekar Arum S.kom., M.Sc from Digital Rights Defender SAFEnet and Meila Nurul Fajriah, S.H., M.PA from Information Research Division of Legal Aid Institution (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum – LBH) Yogyakarta. In front of the webinar participants, Nenden Sekar Arum, stated that sexism is every expression, in the form of actions, words, pictures, and movements based on the idea that some people, in this case, often occurs to women due to their gender. “Sexism is dangerous because it causes a feeling of uselessness, self-censorship, behavior change, and decreased health. The root is gender inequality, and it affects women and children disproportionately,” Nenden Sekar Arum stated. Further, in its development, KGBO does not only target women, but also men who are considered by society do not fit the stereotype of gender roles. She also mentioned that KGBO is not always based on gender difference, but can also be caused by differences in religion, race, age, community group, or sexual orientation.
“The harmful effects of sexism can be worse for some women and men due to ethnicity, religion and other factors,” she continued.
To solve this problem, she reminded participants about the importance of key insights in handling KBGO. These key insights include one’s privacy, both in term of personal data and photos in social media, the digital ecosystem to track personal data spread illegally on the internet, this includes private and public spaces, digital platform, government, and understand the characteristics of the digital world. If someone becomes a victim of KGBO, Nenden Sekar Arum advised that the victim keep the evidence in the form of link and screenshot, utilized reporting feature in the social media, learn to compile a chronology in s.id/contohkronologi, and if necessary, report the case to the police.
To complete the material from Nenden Sekar Arum, Meila Nurul provided detail on the types of KGBO, which includes cyber grooming, cyber harassment, hacking, illegal content, sexting, doxing, and online prostitution. During her career in LBH Yogyakarta, she stated that during 2017-2019 she had the experience of handling KGBO cases. For example, revenge porn which is a threat of spreading pornographic content as an act of revenge from the perpetrator. This case often occurs to victims who broke from their love interest or impersonation, which is impersonating which is a forgery of accounts on behalf of someone to defame the victim.
“We had an experience of accompanying revenge porn victim, but the hardest part of it is on providing proof. If it is from WhatsApp story, there is no link for it, thus, police will be following up by confiscating perpetrator’s phone. But to enter the confiscation stage, we need strong evidence besides screen capture result,” Meila Nurul stated.
In this case, the perpetrator of KGBO can be charged with Article 27 paragraph (1) Law (UU) ITE which stated, “Every person who purposely and illegally distribute and/or transmit and/or facilitate the access of electronic information and/or electronic document which contains insult and/or defamation.”
Besides that, Meila Nurul added that perpetrator can be charged with Article 4 paragraph (1) UU Pornography. This article strictly prohibits the activity of production or distribution of intercourse, including deviant intercourse, sexual violence, masturbation, nudity or display that give an impression of nudity, genitals, and children pornography. Humas UNS
Reporter: Yefta Christopherus AS
Editor: Dwi Hastuti
