LAHORE - The Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) has called upon the high-ups to provide more resources to tackle the rising online harrasment cases in the country.

In a six months operations report for the Cyber Harassment Helpline, DRF recognised that the National Response Centres for Cyber Crime (NR3C) of the FIA have limited resources and are understaffed which has led to a delay in registration and investigation of cases.

There is also a need to establish a rapid response cell in the NR3C since certain cases of cyber harassment are sensitive and require immediate action, the DRF stressed.

The Cyber Harassment Helpline is Pakistan’s first dedicated helpline addressing issues of online abuse and violence providing a free, safe, gender-sensitive and confidential service.

Digital Rights Forum founder Nighat Dad told The Nation that "the Cyber Crimes wing of the FIA need to be more vigilant in taking actions against the perpetrators of cyber harassment, because the victims and survivors turn to the law enforcement agencies for help, and victim blaming from the officials adds to the struggles they're facing."

The Helpline received 763 complaints in the form of calls, emails and Facebook messages from December 1, 2016 till May 31, 2017.

It has so far received 703 calls on the helpline, out of which 569 callers were calling for the first time. Some 63% of the calls were made by women, whereas 37% of the callers were men.

Facebook remains the most widely reported platform where people face the most harassment.

Among the kinds of harassment reported, complaints of fake profiles, non consensual use of information, blackmailing, hacked accounts and devices and unsolicited messages were the most common ones.

“Only non-personally identifiable information is collected from our callers to maintain their privacy,” reads the DRF report. “21.2% of the callers did not want to disclose their location, we were able to identify that most of our callers on the Helpline were from Punjab (44%).”

The helpline also received calls from Sindh (19.1%), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (5%), Balochistan (1.6%), Azad Kashmir (0.6%) and the Federal Capital, Islamabad (8. 7%).

It is to be noted that these figures only reflect information that comes towards the Helpline, and not the general state of cyber harassment in the country.

It was identified that out of a sample of 50 callers who gave psychological data, 18% experienced fear and 18% felt anger which further led to depression (17%), insecurities (19%), disturbed sleep (15%), withdrawal from family and friends (14%), anxiety/paranoia (10%), suicidal thoughts (5%), chronic stress (16%) and problems in relationships (4%).

Building on this data, the Digital Rights has identified recommendations for government and law enforcement agencies to improve the reporting mechanism regarding cyber harassment.

It highlighted that gender-sensitisation trainings for current staff are extremely important along with better coordination with other departments working in gender issues.

“We identified that 50.6% of our callers cannot approach the FIA without leaving their city of residence, as they are currently limited to major cities of Pakistan.

“FIA’s National Response Centre needs to expand their operations to more cities to ensure every individual gets access to justice,” it added.