CyberPeace Foundation and Responsible Netism Launches Campaign India Fights Cyber Violence against Women and Children

Cyber, is the new weapon today! Cyber Violence is violence in cyber-space that has led to violation of cyber rights of individuals, especially those of children and women. Online violence and harassment have been overlooked laying more emphasis on offline or physical violence. Cyber violence very often permanently, psychologically impacts the victims and their families. Various forms of threats ranging from morphing, stalking, solicitation of children for sexual purposes, online grooming, have grave consequences on the victims disturbing their mental well-being. Maintaining mental well-being in cyber space is a challenge we wish to promote and advocate for, in order to build responsible netizens.

Shri. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe - President ICCR, Member of Parliament, Shri. Priyank Kanoongo - Chairperson, NCPCR and Smt. Rekha Sharma, Chairperson NCW at the Launch of #IndiaFightCyberViolence

Together, we stand against violation of cyber rights and strongly believe; it is critical to allow everyone to feel safe online. Netizen’s safety rights must be protected from all kinds of abuse and violence. Setting a mission of ‘Making India Cyber Safe for Children and Women’, Responsible Netism a social purpose organization in association with CyberPeace Foundation, an award-winning Cyber Security think tank working towards bringing CyberPeace in CyberSpace for more than two decades, host its 6th Annual National Conference on Cyber Psychology themed “India Fights Cyber Violence”, scheduled for Saturday, January 22, 2022.

Shri Vinay Sahasrabuddhe addressing the audience at the Launch

Ta advocate on the theme, the campaign #IndiaFightsCyberViolence was launched on November 11, 2021 by honorable Shri. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe - President ICCR, Member of Parliament, Shri. Priyank Kanoongo - Chairperson, NCPCR and Smt. Rekha Sharma, Chairperson NCW at the ICCR Auditorium Delhi. The session was also attended by the CyberPeace Foundation team members.

Shri. Vinay Ji Sahasrabuddhe has been a strong advocate of online safety of children, he shared his visionary words and focused on 3 R’s, Research, Reform and Reshape. He recommended extensive research was necessary to strongly voice concerns and remedies based on evidence-based research which would help us reform intervention strategies and the reshape the existing framework to best suit the needs to protect women and children in cyber space.

The NCW Chairperson Smt. Rekha Sharma shared how critical it is to create awareness about online safety rights of women and reiterated the need for spreading awareness about online safety to reach the last mile in order to build collective action and bring change. She also mentioned the need to conducting nationwide trainings for the police personal to handle and report online distress.

Shri Priyank Kanoongo, the Chairperson of NCPCR has been very proactively advocating for the cause of child online protection and has been instrumental in voicing critical in fiercely voicing his thoughts on protecting online safety rights of children across India. He shared the following thoughts at the launch. He said there is dire need to educate parents about online safety in order to let the information trickle down to their children. He said NCPCR does not hold any inhibitions in naming and shaming violators of child rights be it offline or online and will always raise a strong voice against platform ‘s inability to protect children in cyber space. 

Shri. Vineet Kumar, Founder and Global President, CyberPeace Foundation, the partnering organization shared that this nationwide movement will build great momentum on the cause of online protection of children and women cross the country and urged organizations across India to pledge their support to the cause. The more people joining this movement would build collective pressure to formulate guidelines and policies the make cyber space safe for children and women.

Ms. Sonali Patankar - Founder Responsible Netism shared the objective of the campaign was to let online safety reach the last mile and build on aggressive reporting of online content. The movement was an effort to make the campaign India Fights Cyber Violence to make India cyber safe for children. She shared that the campaign launch would be followed by a nationwide research conducted to understand parents perspectives on cyber violence which would be handy in representing recommendations on women and child safety protocols through commoners. There would be a round table for organizations working with children chaired by Shri Priyank Kanoongo Ji on November 22 followed by a round table held for organizations working with Women chaired by Smt. Rekha Sharma Madam on December 22, 2021. The campaign would culminate in the Responsible Netism 6^th National Cyber Psychology Conference scheduled for January 22, 2022 that would witness a compilation of the research and the work done throughout the campaign.

The launch was attended by Shri Sujay Patki - Social Activist and Advisor Responsible Netism and Ms. Shilpa Chandolikar trustee Responsible Netism, Adv Khushbu Jain Advocate Supreme Court of India followed by the vote of thanks by Shri. Unmesh Joshi - Co-founder Responsible Netism.

With the success of the launch and the support of NCPCR and NCW, we are sure to make this a nation-wide movement to protect cyber safety rights of netizens and strongly believe in collective action to make India Cyber Safe for Women and Children.