New Delhi: With incidents of harassment and stalking on the rise against women on social media, the government has now come up with an initiative that could help tackle this growing menace. Union minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has urged women to post complaints using the hashtag #IamTrolledHelp or mail to gandhim@nic.in.
According to the minister, all complaints would be forwarded to the National Commission for Women and solved within time. Section 10 of the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, will give the commission the powers of a civil court when investigating matters related to women's rights. The ministry has also said that a Joint Secretary has been designated to look into such complaints.
Karuna Nundy, Supreme Court advocate, told TOI that the volume of complaints will definitely be "enormous". "If NCW asks the police to register an FIR, it is more likely to be taken seriously," she said.
A day after Maneka Gandhi on Tuesday announced the Twitter hashtag, there was numerous tweets and mails. "I received several complaints through e-mail. So, we have decided that we will have a women cyber cell where each complaint will be looked into," she said.
She further said that the ministry will be having a joint meeting later this week with representatives from Twitter, Facebook as well as police department to work out a strategy to address complaints of online abuse. Maneka said in a media report, "We are talking to both Twitter and Facebook but mostly Twitter because of the sheer number of abuse and foul language used on this forum. We will have a discussion with Twitter, Facebook and police to develop a strategy".
Last month, music artist Sona Mohapatra suffered abuse on social media for speaking up against actor Salman Khan's remark on rape.
