[kictanet] [ISOC_KE] Technology and Violence against women

Wed Jun 20 14:02:22 EAT 2012

I couldn't agree more with GG on the issue about violence against women
being across the board including social classes. It's always unfortunate
that women victims are always accused of 'inviting' the violence to
themselves yet the causes are deeper.It's a high time we also interrogated
the perpetrators and their motives which normally range from substance
abuse, provocation, low self esteem and need to prove masculinity by being
physical etc. but all which nonetheless can never justify the violation. 

Coming to the use of technology to perpetrate violence against women, this
is not an issue we can run away from because technology is a tool and it
depends on how the user decides to use it. Critical then is to come up with
some regulations to govern and control abuse of internet technology. In
addition, there must be deliberate effort by players and stakeholders
especially government  to encourage the women to use technology positively
though the young generation is quite savvy across gender. 

Jane 

From: kictanet [mailto:kictanet-bounces+info=amwik.org at lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of Grace Githaiga
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:28 PM
To: info at amwik.org
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] [ISOC_KE] Technology and Violence against women

Kelvin

Yes yes you need to be corrected:) 

You will be surprised that violence against women cuts across board i.e. in
rural areas, in urban areas, in slums, in the leafy suburbs etc. Further,
violence is not only physical but also psychological. 

In regard to technology, there have been many cases of women's nude pictures
being posted on internet by rejected lovers (and don't ask me why women
allow their lovers access to their nude pics cause i have no answers). Women
talk of the trauma they go through after something like this has happened
(equate this to psychological violence). Do you remember sometime back,  Kaz
(she is in the entertainment industry) had to appeal to people to stop
forwarding or circulating hers which were posted by an ex, cause it was
causing her so much anguish? 

Patricia Kihoro of 2010 Tusker Project Fame told us in the survey we
conducted on cyber crime and women,  that there was a Patricia hate page
created on facebook after she voted for Ng'ang'alito instead of Debal. This
scared her and she didnt know how the the public would treat her after she
left the academy. She told us that she put private settings on her facebook
page so that it would be impossible to trace her in the searches. This is
just an example of how women are intimidated through the net. 

Okay Kelvin. Pls share what men think as you promised. 

Charles raises an important point that the same online tools used to
intimidate women could be used to strengthen and empower women.  And
Charles, do you think that there are gaps already? Say technological?

Rgds

GG

  _____  

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:27:44 +0300
From: kgithira at gmail.com
To: isoc at orion.my.co.ke
Subject: [ISOC_KE] Technology and Violence against women

Hi all, 

i do think that most cases of women violence happens in rural areas or slums
(assumption ....i dnt have statistics and i stand to be corrected).

 if we are to use technology in form of tools like blogs / cell phones we
must remember that the internet penetration levels are very low in the rural
areas and hence may not reach the targeted or larger audience.

it begins with us we must strive to come up with guidelines that will ensure
that in Kenya even the very remote areas in the near future will have a tool
for women to raise there voices. we can train women on this skills to blog,
create websites but without internet connection there is no platform to air
this views.

we must also ask our self's why there is violence against women its only
after we understand this that we can solve this primitive behavior .
interestingly in Congo this is what women think about it via an sms poll. 

the women

.  Despite all forms of violence that I suffer at the hands of my husband, I
consider them as accidents and I think he will change. 

.  We are forced to suffer all forms of violence, because we love our men,
despite their violence, and also because of the children. And sometimes we
don't have a good social situation, because there is nothing for us anymore
at our parents' home. 

.  Yes, you're scared of losing our home if ever we think to lodge a
complaint or ask ourselves where will we live, especially when you don't
work. 

.  We don't know who to turn to when we are victims of violence, because our
friends give bad advice. 

.  For fear of further abuse, we are sometimes obliged to go along with the
decisions of our husbands, even when they are bad. 

.  Does justice really care about these kinds of problems? When I went to
the police (PSP), I was told we had to settle amicably, because he is my
husband. 

tomorrow i will share what the men think.

regards, 

kelvin 

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Charles Oloo <oloo6382 at gmail.com> wrote:

Subject: Re: [ISOC_KE] Kenya IGF Online discussions Day 3: Technology and
Violence against women

Listers.

1. How can we strengthen participation of women in areas of internet
governance, telecommunications, and cyber crime policy regulation?

This is a very important Q. Although there are many options to tackle such
problems, the best method would be using the same tools to address the
problem. Bloging may not be very popular or used by a large proportion of
women, but it provides an instant window to combat those using the same for
bad purposes. The speed by which information is passed -spread thro
blogging, tweeting, FB etc is so fast and quicker that the normal channels
and procedures one may use to reports such occurrences.
web2fordev] Web 2.0 Learning Opportunities that teach people to use social
media tools. If women are empowered with these technologies, they stand a
better chance of combating the problem.

Charles

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