Young people are falling prey to new scams that their parents’ generation could never have imagined.
Feb 14, 2023
With expanding access to the internet, courtship rituals have changed radically in this socially conservative country. (Shutterstock)
The young woman must have thought she had met someone special. As their casual chats on the Telegram messaging app grew more intimate, she sent Ghiyas, as he called himself, nude photos and videos.
But he wasn’t looking for love. Instead, Ghiyas demanded 5 million sum (about $450) to keep her secrets.
Stories like this, released by the Interior Ministry in Tashkent, are growing more common and prompting the Justice Ministry to propose criminalizing sextortion – extorting money or favors from someone by threatening to reveal their sexual activity.
Ghiyas was arrested in a December 2022 sting. Police found compromising photos of another 10 women on his phone.
Internet penetration in Uzbekistan has jumped in recent years, from 16 percent in 2010 to an estimated 70 percent last year. With expanding access to the internet, courtship rituals have changed radically in this socially conservative country. Whereas members of older generations often had their marriages arranged by their families, and even chaste dating was uncommon, today social media networks, especially Telegram messenger (with over 18 million active users in Uzbekistan), give young people the space to meet and talk.
For some, it’s a chance to explore in secret what traditionalists call shameful and even sinful behavior before marriage.
Though cyberspace has transformed habits, it has not reformed patriarchal mores. Girls still carry their family nomus (honor) between their legs. Many families insist the bride’s virginity be medically examined before the wedding; rape victims are considered sullied.
Such attitudes make women more vulnerable for targeted sexual extortion. And based on press and police reports, the victims are often young women. Dreading the judgement and disapproval of parents and police, they are the most reluctant to seek help.
When an underaged Nigina met Jalil (their names have been changed) on Telegram and naively shared intimate photo and videos, Jalil threatened to send copies to her family. To buy his silence, she gave him a $350 gold ring, probably part of her future dowry. After receiving the ring, Jalil reportedly went on to sextort money from four other young women before returning to Nigina, this time demanding $450. She finally filed a complaint with the police. When the story was published on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by a district judge, he heaped blame on the victims: girls “who are not ashamed to send naked pictures and videos by their own choice.”
Under Article 165 of Uzbekistan’s current Criminal Code, defendants charged with extortion face three to five years in prison (up to 10 for repeat offenders). The proposed law defines leaking nude photos as a crime, adding language about disclosing personal secrets and humiliation. In addition to jail time, the accused would face a fine up to $15,800. More severe punishment is envisioned for repeat offenders or if the victim is under age 16.
Official statistics are not available for sextortion verdicts; were they, the numbers would almost certainly be undercounts, since shame likely prevents many people from reporting the crime. But Statistics Committee figures for extortion more generally show a 250 percent increase in cases with women as defendants between 2007 and 2021; where men stand accused, the figures, though several times higher, rose 25 percent.
Female sextortion generally targets married men, sometimes after an affair.
Police in Samarkand last month arrested a woman who had successfully extorted money from a man while promising to delete his nude photos from internet.
Such police reports are part of a government effort to educate the public about the risks to sharing personal information online amid growing cases of cybertheft and online fraud.
“Cybercrime is on the rise in terms of phishing messages and stealing money from people's debit cards,” said Rashid Gabdulhakov, an assistant professor at the Research Center for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “What is unknown is how much people are being blackmailed for other things. For instance, since homosexuality is still criminalized and there is no state support, this creates a fruitful environment for police to blackmail people.”
A 2022 law charged the State Security Service, the KGB successor agency, with policing cybersecurity in Uzbekistan and raising awareness of online dangers. So far, the draft law remains the only specific measure to address sexual extortion. There are few public awareness campaigns that would reach broad segments of society. “Whether they are effective or not is too premature to say,” Gabdulhakov said. “We need time as these are rather recent measures. It is refreshing to see that something is finally being done here.”
The young woman must have thought she had met someone special. As their casual chats on the Telegram messaging app grew more intimate, she sent Ghiyas, as he called himself, nude photos and videos.
But he wasn’t looking for love. Instead, Ghiyas demanded 5 million sum (about $450) to keep her secrets.
Stories like this, released by the Interior Ministry in Tashkent, are growing more common and prompting the Justice Ministry to propose criminalizing sextortion – extorting money or favors from someone by threatening to reveal their sexual activity.
Ghiyas was arrested in a December 2022 sting. Police found compromising photos of another 10 women on his phone.
Internet penetration in Uzbekistan has jumped in recent years, from 16 percent in 2010 to an estimated 70 percent last year. With expanding access to the internet, courtship rituals have changed radically in this socially conservative country. Whereas members of older generations often had their marriages arranged by their families, and even chaste dating was uncommon, today social media networks, especially Telegram messenger (with over 18 million active users in Uzbekistan), give young people the space to meet and talk.
For some, it’s a chance to explore in secret what traditionalists call shameful and even sinful behavior before marriage.
Though cyberspace has transformed habits, it has not reformed patriarchal mores. Girls still carry their family nomus (honor) between their legs. Many families insist the bride’s virginity be medically examined before the wedding; rape victims are considered sullied.
Such attitudes make women more vulnerable for targeted sexual extortion. And based on press and police reports, the victims are often young women. Dreading the judgement and disapproval of parents and police, they are the most reluctant to seek help.
When an underaged Nigina met Jalil (their names have been changed) on Telegram and naively shared intimate photo and videos, Jalil threatened to send copies to her family. To buy his silence, she gave him a $350 gold ring, probably part of her future dowry. After receiving the ring, Jalil reportedly went on to sextort money from four other young women before returning to Nigina, this time demanding $450. She finally filed a complaint with the police. When the story was published on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by a district judge, he heaped blame on the victims: girls “who are not ashamed to send naked pictures and videos by their own choice.”
Under Article 165 of Uzbekistan’s current Criminal Code, defendants charged with extortion face three to five years in prison (up to 10 for repeat offenders). The proposed law defines leaking nude photos as a crime, adding language about disclosing personal secrets and humiliation. In addition to jail time, the accused would face a fine up to $15,800. More severe punishment is envisioned for repeat offenders or if the victim is under age 16.
Official statistics are not available for sextortion verdicts; were they, the numbers would almost certainly be undercounts, since shame likely prevents many people from reporting the crime. But Statistics Committee figures for extortion more generally show a 250 percent increase in cases with women as defendants between 2007 and 2021; where men stand accused, the figures, though several times higher, rose 25 percent.
Female sextortion generally targets married men, sometimes after an affair.
Police in Samarkand last month arrested a woman who had successfully extorted money from a man while promising to delete his nude photos from internet.
Such police reports are part of a government effort to educate the public about the risks to sharing personal information online amid growing cases of cybertheft and online fraud.
“Cybercrime is on the rise in terms of phishing messages and stealing money from people's debit cards,” said Rashid Gabdulhakov, an assistant professor at the Research Center for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “What is unknown is how much people are being blackmailed for other things. For instance, since homosexuality is still criminalized and there is no state support, this creates a fruitful environment for police to blackmail people.”
A 2022 law charged the State Security Service, the KGB successor agency, with policing cybersecurity in Uzbekistan and raising awareness of online dangers. So far, the draft law remains the only specific measure to address sexual extortion. There are few public awareness campaigns that would reach broad segments of society. “Whether they are effective or not is too premature to say,” Gabdulhakov said. “We need time as these are rather recent measures. It is refreshing to see that something is finally being done here.”
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