News

Women more vulnerable on cyber space: FWRM

September 28, 2022 6:00 am

[File Photo]

Fiji Women’s Rights Movement Executive Director Nalini Singh says the issue of cybercrime should not only be looked at from a gender-neutral perspective.

Singh made the comment while welcoming the government’s intention to accede to the Convention on Cyber Crime.

She says women who have regular access to online spaces are more vulnerable to being exposed to violence online

Article continues after advertisement

“With 64 percent of Fijian women having ever experienced physical, or sexual gender-based violence from their intimate partners, we humbly submit that this will most likely cross over to cyberspace we see crimes against women and girls being perpetrated online. “

Singh says dissecting how cybercrime occurs can assist the State in providing a better response.

“We cannot have laws and the subsequent elements in it being gender neutral because we cannot have the same type of response to a man and a woman regardless of where they are. You have to have an understanding of how a woman would have suffered versus how a man would have suffered.”

The Cyber Crime Convention is a criminal justice treaty that provides states with a list of attacks against and by means of computers that are criminalized.