Legal mechanisms must catch up to tackle online (sexual) violence

“I never thought that this would ever happen to me,” Narakorn Tiyayon, a former news anchor said, as she recounted her experience of falling victim to an online romance scam during a panel discussion on ending digital violence against women, hosted by UN Women in late November.

As Narakorn describes it, it all began “innocently”, with simple “hello” messages on Facebook, which she would normally ignore, considering how many messages she received each day as a public figure. That particular message, however, grew into casual conversations, chitchatting about pets, and discussing a possible future together. Little did she know that it would end up being a romance scam.

“He seemed really polite and well-educated,” she explains, adding that the man claimed to be an expert in digital assets and sent his Chinese ID and passport to her, which appeared legitimate at a glance. What really caught her by surprise was how he paid attention to the details of her personal interests, which led to further engagement.

The man in question later convinced her to invest in digital assets, with promises of high returns. It began with very small investments and returns as promised but, when the man demanded larger sums of money from her, she felt that something was suspicious.

She then decided to report him to Facebook and even threatened to report him to the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok. Narakorn also reported the matter to the Stock Exchange Commission of Thailand, through which she subsequently discovered that the investment platform was a fraudulent website.

The damage was more than the financial losses, it was also the psychological and emotional manipulation that came with it.

Speaking up about her experience was not easy. As Narakorn admits, it was too embarrassing for her, as she was worried that her reputation, as a seasoned journalist, would be tarnished and that people would accuse her of being stupid or greedy for falling victim to a romance scam.

“As a romance scam survivor, I would say don’t be embarrassed to speak up and to seek help, because, after telling my story, I felt relieved. Many people offered moral support to me,” Narakorn explains.

Since then, Narakorn has been raising awareness and helping others seek legal support. She established a Facebook group that now has over 150 online scam survivors, with combined losses totalling over 400 million baht.

The main challenge, however, is holding perpetrators accountable. As she explains, even if online scam survivors try to seek help, the justice system cannot do anything to crackdown on abusers.

“So, I want the legal system to help these victims more promptly and return the extorted money to them, because many of them have lost everything,” she said.

Online violence is real violence

Romance scams are just one aspect of online violence against women. In recent years, pornographic deepfakes, cyber threats, cyber stalking and AI, fuelling harmful narratives of women, are rapidly increasing in digital spaces. Such online abuse does not necessarily stop ‘online’, but can spill over into real life.

According to country based statistics from UN Women, between 16% and 58% of women and girls around the world have been subjected to digital violence, ranging from online harassment and cyberstalking to the sharing of intimate images without their consent, including pornographic deepfakes, which are becoming of deep concern.

88% of women in the Asia-Pacific region have also experienced some form of digital violence.

Melissa Alvarado, UN Women's Regional Lead on Ending Violence against Women, explains that the rapid development of new technology has made it much easier to find ways to spread more harmful content, such as pornographic deepfakes and sexually explicit content. These, she says, are shared or traded “behind the scenes”, such as in private group chats, with end-to-end encryption, or online platforms which require subscriptions to grant exclusive access to such explicit material.

Still, effective legal recourse for women who fall victim to online abuse remains lacking. As Melissa explains, the legal frameworks are still not catching up with or taking action against such crimes.

“(Online sexual violence) is often not just one man acting alone. It's often men working in concert with other men in communities, sharing content, helping each other to share, distribute and create content,” Melissa explains.

Similarly, a Thai lawyer, who provides legal support for sexual abuse victims, has found that, in Thailand, there are still no laws that directly address sexual abuse in digital spaces, while offline sexual violence alone is already difficult to address.

Thararat Panya, a feminist lawyer and founder of Feminist Legal Support explains that the perception that online violence does not constitute real violence or cause serious and real harm is a major obstacle.

This belief feeds the victim-blaming attitude among justice officials, where victims, especially those of online harassment or cyberstalking, encounter questions about how their photos got leaked or whether they posted sexually provocative photos, pushing the burden to prove the wrongdoings onto themselves.

“This mind set treats the situation as if no real violence has occurred, which results in cases not being taken up or processed,” Thararat explains.

“The burden is then pushed onto the victims. They’re expected to find evidence themselves and prove to whom the anonymous account harassing them belongs. These are the obstacles we face when trying to access the justice system.”

While AI has exacerbated online abuse and harmful narratives against women, if used with responsibility, AI could also be used to detect inappropriate content and remove it from online platforms.

Pinnaree Tea-Makorn, an AI Strategist at Sasin School of Management suggests that online platforms could use AI to detect such content and then reduce its engagement, or take the posts down.

“These are things platforms can do, and it’s not difficult to do,” Pinnaree believes.

Although solving this problem may take longer at a governmental level, Pinnaree acknowledges that many sectors in Thailand do agree that violence against women in all forms must be addressed.

“Legal experts need to design laws with as few loopholes as possible. So, we want the government to invest time and show real commitment to solving this problem,” she said.

In order to tackle growing online sexual violence against women, UN Women urges the creation of clear legal frameworks to address the problem, including justice institutions and the tech companies operating the platforms, which must be equipped to take action against online wrongdoings. Above all, a survivor-centric approach is crucial to tackling online and offline violence against women.

“We need to make sure that definitions and the legal frameworks are clear,” Melissa concludes. “Violence against women is an old crime. (Now though) it's being communicated and created through new forms. Now we have to make sure that the legislative framework can be creatively applied to hold people accountable and to provide justice.”