In order to tackle cyber-crime, Bangladesh on Tuesday began training thousands of teenage girls to fight the hysteric rise of social media-related abuses mostly targeting adolescents. As per the police, the online harassment levels have alarmingly rose in Bangladesh lately and it mostly targets young women.
More than 10,000 school-age girls will take part in government workshops around the country in April and May to teach them what to look out for and how to respond.
As per a deputy commissioner of of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Nazmul Islam, the cyber-crime department lodges 10-12 complaints every day.
“Some 90 per cent of these victims are pre-teen and teenage girls,” he added.
According to these complaints, girls have forced to post intimate photographs and videos which are later used for trolling and other illegal activities. On some occasions, hidden cameras were used to secretly film young people having sex, with the footage later posted online.
“Sometimes these photos and videos are being used by boyfriends to emotionally blackmail the girls or their families,” said Islam.
“(The) majority of the victims are young girls. In many cases, once they were married, they found that their former lovers posted their intimate photos to social media,” prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim told AFP.
“In one incident, a young woman committed suicide after her lover sent some of her intimate photos to her mobile phone,” he said.
