Special Victims Dept seeks public support to curb digital violence

Carisa Lee

Re­porter

[email protected]

Head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment (SVD), Su­per­in­ten­dent Dar­ryl Ram­dass, says the po­lice ser­vice re­quires new skills, new tools, and new part­ner­ships to deal with the rise in dig­i­tal vi­o­lence.

As such, one unit in the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has al­ready trained Form One teach­ers on how to spot and treat with dig­i­tal abuse to­wards girls.

Speak­ing at the de­part­ment’s clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the com­mem­o­ra­tion of 16 Days of Ac­tivism against Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Ram­dass said po­lice re­main com­mit­ted to re­spond­ing de­ci­sive­ly and com­pas­sion­ate­ly to dig­i­tal abuse re­ports.

“We meet vic­tims whose lives are up­end­ed not by what hap­pens in a phys­i­cal space but by what hap­pens on a screen, of­ten in­vis­i­ble, rapid, and bor­der­less,” he said.

Ram­dass em­pha­sised the evolv­ing na­ture of these chal­lenges. He not­ed that as the world be­comes in­creas­ing­ly con­nect­ed, so too do the threats faced by women and girls.

He added that the theme “UNiTE to End Dig­i­tal Vi­o­lence against All Women and Girls” in­vites stake­hold­ers to step for­ward in a rapid­ly evolv­ing fron­tier of harm, and to do so with ur­gency, em­pa­thy, and in­no­va­tion.

“Dig­i­tal spaces once imag­ined as zones of op­por­tu­ni­ty, learn­ing, and em­pow­er­ment have al­so be­come plat­forms for harm. From cy­ber-stalk­ing and a non-con­sen­su­al shar­ing of in­ti­mate im­ages to on­line ha­rass­ment, dig­i­tal im­per­son­ation, traf­fick­ing, re­cruit­ment, and the use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence to ma­nip­u­late or ex­ploit, dig­i­tal vi­o­lence is re­al vi­o­lence,” he added.

The SVD head said their com­mit­ment will re­quire new skills, new tools, and new part­ner­ships.

As such, An­ish Bachu, head of the T&T Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty In­ci­dent Re­sponse Team (TT-CSIRT), which falls un­der the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, re­vealed that ahead of Form One stu­dents re­ceiv­ing their new lap­tops un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tive, his team, along with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, trained Form One teach­ers and Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem staff on cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty.

“On how to recog­nise on­line abuse, how to recog­nise, you know, is­sues in dig­i­tal class­rooms, that they could then take pre-emp­tive ac­tion and kind of nip things in the bud go­ing for­ward, right,” he said.

West­ley-Ann Howard, speak­ing on be­half of the el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion through her group Re­build­ing Mo­men­tum and Re­silience Con­sul­tan­cy, called on every­one to re­mem­ber the el­der­ly. She said they are more like­ly to face cy­ber­bul­ly­ing and fraud.