The rate of crimes that are taking place across the internet in Bangladesh is alarming and in rise, but most of the incidents remain unreported.
Women and girls as well as minors fall prey to offenders in the cyberspace. But law enforcing agencies can take actions only on reported cases. A large number of incidents are not reported because the victims and their family fear that reporting the crimes may cause further complications for them.
On the other hand, people who have already involved in activities that may be termed as cybercrime, unable to consider these as crime as they have little awareness about cybercrime.
These trends limit law enforcing agency to take action against the perpetrators.
The parents and family members should pay more attention to safeguard their children from cybercrime. With awareness messages, teachers can also protect their students from cybercrime.
The observations came from the discussions of the closing event of a training session. With the financial support from the US Department of State, SoMaSHTe – Society for Media and Suitable Human-communication Techniques organized the training of trainers (ToT) under the project namely Internet Safety and Security Literacy for School Children. A total of 12 youths took part in the 3-day training held at a restaurant in Bogura on 14-16 February 2020.
The Superintendent of Police Ali Ashraf Bhuiyan addresses the event.
The Superintendent of Police (SP) of Bogura Md. Ali Ashraf Bhuiyan was the chief guest in the closing event of the training. Hazrat Ali, District Education Officer (in-charge), Md. Omar Ali, Lecturer, Baghopara Shaheed Danesh Uddin School and College and Md. Shahidul Islam, President of Bangladesh Teachers’ Association spoke the occasion as guests. Hasibur Rahman Bilu, journalist of Independent TV, was present in the occasion.
The SP said, “We can only know the cases that are reported, but the problem of cybercrime is much deeper and beyond our imagination.” He informed that many of the kidnap and rape cases received by police were attributed to cybercrime. Police analyzed 35 kidnap complaints over the last few months, the victims of 16 cases were of secondary level students while further 16 were higher secondary students. On the other hand, there were 48 rape cases in which 30 secondary level and seven higher secondary level students were involved as victims, the remaining of the victims were women. However, none of rape cases were found true, they were originated mainly from other sort of conflicts.
Participants of the training.
The participants of the training were taught about the different areas of cybercrime, digital security, safeguarding online accounts and personal information, precautions to use social media platforms, addiction to internet etc. In the later part of the training, the trainees delivered mock sessions. Their presentations were evaluated by the students of local schools and madrasas and fellow participants.
The participants will act as trainers to train some 7,500 secondary students on internet safety and security literacy. Some 75 schools and madrasas of the district will be covered through the training programmes.
SoMaSHTe’s directors Mir Masrur Zaman and Rezaul Haque facilitated the training.