Image Based Sexual Abuse: What needs to be done?

Part 1 - Lead Organizer

Contact Person

Yi Ting Lee

Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate)

Digital Defenders Partnership

Designation

Communications Officer

Gender

Female

Economy of Residence

Singapore

Primary Stakeholder Group

Civil Society

Part 2 - Session Proposal

Your proposal is for

Main Conference (Day 1-3)

Session Title

Image Based Sexual Abuse: What needs to be done?

Track

Inclusion Trust

Session Format

Panel Discussion

Where do you plan to organize your session?

Virtual / online

Specific Issues for Discussion

The session will focus on the issue of image-based sexual abuse in the context of Asia. As a form of technology-facilitated gender based violence (TVGBV), image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) has wide-reaching impact on the lives of women and other gender minorities, including restricting the digital participation of women and reducing gender inclusion in online spaces. Drawing from their work, panellists will discuss the various forms of IBSA and how it intersects with other axes of power and discrimination in Asia; its impact on victim-survivors; available forms of recourse and their limitations; and the responsibilities of various stakeholders (such as the government, law enforcement, platform providers, survivor support services, digital security trainers, etc.) in tackling IBSA.

Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF

Image-based sexual abuse and non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII, commonly known by the misnomer “revenge porn”) are extremely complex and long-standing issues that include aspects of privacy, cybersecurity, legislation, policy, gender-based violence, and so on. The session touches upon several aspects of the overarching theme and sub-themes of the APrIGF. As the speakers come from diverse backgrounds with extensive expertise on this topic, our aim is that participants gain a deeper understanding of the topic and knowledge of actionable strategies from this session.

Methodology / Agenda

The moderator will interact with an expert panel of 3 speakers with diverse backgrounds and expertise. The moderator will provide a brief reference about the issue before introducing the first speaker (5 mins). Simultaneously, she will welcome any question through the chat box. After a roughly 10 minutes presentation, the moderator will choose 1 question from the participants to be answered by the first speaker (5 mins). The moderator will link back the answer to welcome the second speaker and the previous scheme shall be repeated until the third speaker. The last 15 mins of the session will be used for a Q & A session and open discussion with the participants.

Please provide 3 subject matter tags that best describe your session.

#ViolenceAgainstWomen; #ImageBasedSexualAbuse; #TechnologyFacilitatedGenderBasedViolence

Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible)

Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.

Rohini Lakshané is a researcher, a leading expert on feminist technology, and an engineer by training. Her body of work encompasses diverse territories such as the application of technology and policy to solve issues of gender inequity and violence; openness; making tech spaces diverse and inclusive; and the cross-hairs of gender, sexuality and the Internet. She regularly speaks at regional, national and international events on these topics and more. She was the Director (Emerging Research) at The Bachchao Project, a techno-feminist collective (2017-21) and the editor of EROTICSIndia.org (2013-14). Justitia is a litigation lawyer who founded the Lawyers’ Collective for Gender Justice aiming to provide pro-bono legal services to victims of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in Indonesia. With the skyrocketing numbers of Online GBV especially during pandemic, Justitia handled more than 75 cases throughout the year. She developed handbooks on how to handle Online GBVs and led a research on how the Indonesian Law fails to accommodate victims’ needs in such cases. Lee Yi Ting works at the intersection of gender justice and digital rights, and is currently researching the issue of image-based sexual abuse in the context of Singapore. With years of experience in sex workers’ rights advocacy, she is interested in finding solutions to technology-facilitated sexual violence that uphold the labour and expression rights of gender and sexual minorities. Prior to taking on her current role as the Communications Officer at the Digital Defenders Partnership, she worked as a Digital Integrity Fellow for the same organisation, providing digital and holistic security support to human rights defenders at risk of digital attacks.