With trending globalization, massive challenges are being faced by International and National Criminal Law.[1] It is not always the facilitated acts of gender violence but even the threats of such acts which result in psychological, physical, and sexual harm to the women, children, and their dignity. There is no universally applicable criminal law regime regulating online violence against women. An increase in online sexual offenses grows an appetite for addressing online content through legal regulation.[2] The national legislative developments are not potentially designed to address the typical digital sexual crimes and fallacies. Therefore, it is reflected that there is very little shift in attitudes towards legal regulation of digital platforms which have become the biggest resource of sexual offenses against women and children.[3] The regulation of the online content becomes tough mainly due to the shield provisions maintained to ensure that platform operators are not responsible for the content that is posted and shared on their platforms. The magnitude of various forms of online sexual ferocity is mostly paired with the facelessness of the perpetrators. This is the reason for the lack of appropriate and effective reporting mechanisms which poses a barricade to the effective processing of such cases.[4] The existing criminal law provisions incline towards focussing on concepts such as ‘Proximity’ or ‘Hearing’ which prove redundant in the context of acts taking place in the online sphere, mainly on social media. Image-based sexual abuse and voyeurism, have been the subject of speedy law reform in many countries across the world but there are significant deficiencies in the way that criminal law conceptualizes the digital form of sexual violence.[5]
In current times, social networking sites are used by more and more people who target online profiles of vulnerable minors for sexual activities (Briggs et al., 2011; Buschman et al., 2010; DeHart et al., 2016).
[1] Shirin Ahmadi Dastjerdi, et al., The Effects Of The Globalisation On The National Criminal Law Systems, 2614 LIBRARY PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE 2, 2-3 (2018)
[2] Y. ANDREW CRANE, DIRK MATTEN, ABAGAIL MCWILLIAMS, JEREMY MOON, & DONALD S. SIEGEL ,THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 5-7(Oxford University Press 1st Edition 2009)
[3] Bhartiya Shree Shakti, “ A Comparative Study Of Impact Of New Laws, Crime Rate and Reporting Rate, Change In Awareness Level” , Tackling Violence Against Women: A Study Of State Intervention Measures”
March, 2017, 126
[4] Nicola Henry, et al. Sexual Violence in the Digital Age,25(4) SAGE JOURNALS (2016)
[5] Alexy, E. M., Burgess, A. W., Baker,&T., Smoyak, 5 Perceptions of cyberstalking among college students SA,279,279-289 (2005)
