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In recent years, online gender-based violence within the Balkan area has increased and has almost always remained unpunished. In this situation, activists have begun to organize themselves to create spaces of resistance and fight against digital violence
Write “Marina from Belgrade” on Pornhub, her ex told her a year after their relationship broke up. Marina still remembers the fear and confusion after seeing the research product: her world had suddenly collapsed. Since then, even though the video has been taken off the platform, she lives in fear of her reappearance. “She reminds me how helpless I was, or am” he recounted a Balkan Insight.
The violence Marina suffered from her ex-boyfriend defines itself revenge porn or “image-based sexual abuse” and consists of the dissemination of intimate content without consent on online platforms, porn sites or Telegram groups. As the meaning “revenge” suggests, this violence is often carried out with vengeful ends and with the intention of humiliating and mortifying the victim. In the Balkans, Marina’s case is not an isolated case. Only in Serbia, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) esteem that there are at least 16 telegram groups in which images and videos are shared, even daily, without consent. According to data, the largest of them would have at least 50,000 members.
Virtual world, real consequences
Il revenge porn it is a form of violence that falls under the broader definition of “digital violence”, the set of attacks that take place in the virtual world. Digital violence is insidious, it reflects the power relations present in society and it strikes above all girls and women. From misogynistic comments under photos, to intimidation and cyberstalking, according to some research more than half of women who use the internet on a daily basis would have suffered at least one form of digital violence.
The goal of online violence is to silence, to force one’s victims to silence through mortifications and humiliations. Online attackers sneakily hide behind the computer screen. Under anonymous profiles they abuse freedom of expression to impose their will in the unruly world of the web. In the case of online gender-based violence, the aim is to reaffirm one’s patriarchal authority. Through the non-consensual sharing of intimate photos or videos, through intimidation or simply by sending continuous misogynistic and sexist comments, the attackers want to send the same message: you are a woman, you are an object for me, I can have you and your body as I want.
Hitting online is easy, you can do it from the comfort of your home with your phone. The world of the network almost seems to relieve the aggressor of his own responsibility. At the bottom just click the “send” button. The same cannot be said for the victims. Online as offline, girls and women victims of violence can suffer psychological trauma, problems with self-esteem and personal safety, damage to their reputation and dignity. For fear of being exposed to further violence, even in the virtual world women are beginning to isolate themselves. They often prefer to stand on the sidelines and limit their freedom of expression, self-censoring, in order not to be subject to violent aggression again. By intersecting with violence in the real world, the two are in fact connected, even online violence limits the exercise of rights and the participation of the female component, continuing to legitimize a system based on patriarchal privilege.
A system based on impunity
In Serbia does not exist a law that directly punishes the revenge porn. For the authorities to intervene, elements of blackmail, harassment or stalking must also be present. This is valid in other contexts as well. National laws often do not contain rules aimed at explicitly regulating the phenomenon of digital violence. For example, there is no provision regarding countering hate speech on virtual platforms for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
On the other hand, even when safeguards exist, they turn out to be valid only on paper. The institutional answer is fragmentary and public bodies react too slowly and ineffectively. To quote a case : In 2020, the existence of a Telegram group called “Public Room” was discovered in North Macedonia where non-consensual nude photos and videos, child pornography, data, social profiles and other private information were shared among hundreds of users. After the discovery, there was a scandal and at the request of the Macedonian Interior Minister, “Public Room” was closed by Telegram. Since then, no other measures have been taken: no member has ever been tried and in the meantime another Telegram group with the same functions had already been recreated the following year.
In this context, however, the problem of combating online gender-based violence is not just a matter of legislative shortcomings. The victims also clash with a patriarchal system that legitimizes and normalizes the violence suffered. This can be clearly seen in the approach of some media. In the Balkans women are often underrepresented within the mainstream media, which, in recounting cases of femicide or sexual violence, also use an unethical approach, characterized by sexist and sensationalistic language, often revealing the identity of the victim, thus making her more exposed to possible attacks online.
The situation becomes even more serious when the same logic is also shared by the authorities who are supposed to protect the victims themselves. Katarina (invented name) is a Serbian girl who she was a victim Of revenge porn. At fifteen she was filmed by her boyfriend while she was sexually assaulted while unconscious. Following the breakup of the relationship, he spread the video on various porn sites and telegram groups, together with the girl’s personal data and her Instagram profile. When Katarina went to the police to report the incident, the authorities did not react. “They told me I was exaggerating because [a quel tempo] we were still in a relationship.” They told her, “He’s a man and he has his needs.”
Weak legislation, slow responses and normalization of violence thus create a climate of impunity such that, in the event of violence, women they don’t feel protected enough to be able to sue. A situation of impunity supported both by the phenomenon of victim blaming, or the blaming of the victim, which frequently occurs on social media, and, according to the activist Valmira Rashiti of the Kosovo Women’s Network, by the institutions themselves. “Victim blaming is rampant online” explains to Balkan Insight. “You can filter the comments and find men who are police officers, social workers or civil servants instigating violence and blaming victims.”
Don’t report for fear of society’s judgment. Don’t talk because you know you aren’t being heard. In the Balkans, women victims of violence are forced to face this reality.
Spaces of resistance
To face such a grim situation, over the years many feminist activists have sought strategies to change the status quo. Several women’s rights associations are developing methods to counter the violence inherent in the patriarchal system. And slowly they are succeeding. In their hands the digital space becomes a space of resistance, a place to challenge the violent culture of silence.
Per example , in 2018 in the wake of the “Me too” movement, in North Macedonia, many survivors of abuse and violence began to share their stories using the hashtag #ISpeakUpNow (#СегаКажуваm in Macedonian and #TaniTregoj in Albanian) giving strength to others to raise their voices. In 2021, Serbian actress Milena Radulović spoke about her experience of being abused in drama school. Of her His courage inspired the creation of the Facebook page ‘Nisam tražila’ (I didn’t ask) which in a short time raised more than 4000 messages reports on women’s experiences of sexual violence across the region. Sharing one’s life stories or experiences has thus created a common digital solidarity network that supports women by telling them: I’m listening to you, you’re not alone.
In this scenario, social networks become a refuge, a safe space. Indeed numerous feminist groups they work continuously on several fronts. On the one hand, an attempt is made to accompany the victims of violence on their journey, providing information on access to reception centres, possible legal remedies and organizing initiatives and demonstrations in their support. On the other, there is an attempt to carry out prevention within society, fueling the debate on gender issues and using all means, including memes, to counter patriarchal norms. Thus, in the hands of women, the means used as ‘instruments of violence’ also become ‘places of collective resistance’, where a sexist attack is answered with satire.
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