Perhaps one of the biggest pitfalls of living in an age of rapid development is that the bad tends to progress with the good. In some ways, the former even ends up progressing faster. A computer virus is always developed first before an anti-virus software is created to combat the virus. In its wake the virus can leave trails of destruction such as identity theft, lost data, documents being stolen etc. It is the ability of anti-virus companies and software companies to come up with a solution fast enough that minimizes damage and thus minimizes the loss.
Rules have always been created because someone did something that mandated them. Similarly laws are mostly made on an ad-hoc basis as cases arise. Yet, unfortunately we have been unable to keep up to speed in this process of law making. As a result, so many actions occur which should be classified as “crimes” but aren’t so because either the laws have not been made, there is no implementation or worse that the problem is not even fully understood.
Bullying and harassment, a crime, which is most disregard as being one. While only just a few years ago we started taking harassment of women in the workplace seriously, other forms of harassment and bullying have been disregarded. With mobile phone usage on the rise with more than 100 million mobile users in the country harassment and bullying in the form of calls, messages and even on social media continue to happen. Some of these can take extreme forms. Girls have to leave college and schools because someone posts compromising images of them on social media or takes pictures of them using their phones. Some have even resorted to committing suicide. Apparently the victim is the one to blame and not the criminal. Still, there are no avenues that anyone who is being harassed, stalked or bullied can pursue easily. Most of these cases are not even taken seriously and as a result the trauma inflicted destroys the lives of many.
Another case is child abuse. Where it is not only a taboo to talk about, but children are never encouraged to come forward when they are facing abuse at the hands of teachers, parents or even strangers. Molestation is almost never reported. There is a need for stronger laws to be enacted to protect our children from horrible monsters lurking in our streets taking the shape of ordinary citizens! The United Nations state that child sex-abuse, a widespread problem in Pakistan, is on the rise at an alarming rate because it has been left largely unchecked due to its ‘sensitive’ nature. In Karachi 170,000 children live on the streets. Ninety percent of them have been sexually abused. Even those amongst the more privileged are not completely free from this horror.
Cybercrime again is a huge issue which we have left uncheck. While ministers and government officials use existing legislation for cybercrime to mostly block incriminating content against them and YouTube. It has not served any useful purpose for the common man. It is even now outdated and largely unenforced. For example, so many ATMs are popping up across the country now. Very easy targets for hackers and thieves who can install a device on top of the card reader which will read and record the ATM cards information which they can later use to withdraw money. Other forms of ATM fraud are fake calls asking for ATM PINs and other personal information which can be easily used in identity theft. What makes it worse is that given the poor consumer protection laws we have, it is the ordinary person who has to deal with and live with the consequences of the crime! The banks and corporations end up getting away with it.
Phishing is another form of stealing data where people are led to a fake website which looks just like the original. Generally these are websites of banks, government institutions and other organizations which are important and hold key data. Recently the FBR has also been a victim of this where malicious groups were sending out emails posing to be from FBR and redirecting them to a website where they were asked to enter their banking information. The government which takes pride in blocking websites like YouTube should at least enforce a block on these phishing sites as soon as they are discovered.
We now have a newly elected parliament and new legislators. I hope that they will pay a little more attention to these issues than their predecessors. Everyday we end up going further back in this battle against new crimes. If action is not quickly taken we might end up losing it, and losing it badly!
The writer is Youth Ambassador of Geo and Jang Group.Email:am.nawazish@janggroup.com.pk
Facebook: facebook.com/ali.moeen.nawazish
Twitter: @am_nawazish

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