Wake up to Reality: How Captured Sex Videos are Destroying Lives

Report collected by: Ali Manjeshwar  (9895731734) Mangalore, Jan 16: A menace, not so new in its origin but absolutely fatal, is on the prowl for some years now and has been destroying the lives of tens of youngsters, especially girls and their families. We are talking about videos containing explicit sex scenes that are being circulated with impunity in the last few years, about which the policemen and intelligence agencies seem to have done little. In Indian society, social stigma scare prevents girls from taking up cudgels against the perpetrators of their character assassination. It appears that even in cases where the guilty have been found, the parents of the girls try to let them go scot-free by just accepting an apology, because of the fear of adverse publicity, which can ruin the future of their daughters. There appears to be no hope for girls in such condition, in a country where honour killing is the order of the day, and virginity and chastity are expected of women alone. What can a girl, hounded by pervert minds, whose hunger for raw sex and misguided adventurism encourages them to use technology to spoil the names of girls, do? Apart from videos captured without their knowledge, there are those which are taken with the full consent of the girls, who are naive enough to trust their 'boyfriends' who are the real culprits in most cases. Many a time we come across incidents where the man exploits the woman in the name of 'love' only to blackmail her later. In such cases some of the blame lies on the girl too for allowing the man to take her video in the first place, notwithstanding his 'promises.' The victims of such videos naturally feel helpless in a society where are people are too ready to doubt the character of good-looking girls. The girls can do little else other than watch in exasperation as their character is dragged to the street, and doctored videos are spread out in public like a piece of meat thrown to a pack of wild dogs.  The situation gets worse when the girl is enticed into it with money. Especially in cases where the girl is left to tend for herself for whatever reason, the lure of money proves to be an effective bait. With little care for her future and the consequence, the girl lets herself become a victim of sleaze videos in return for a few bucks. By the time she realises her mistake, it is too late and many a time her life ends in tragedy. Many lives are lost by way of suicides, futures get trampled upon, minds wither, people suffer in silence, character gets corrupted, and families get shifted to unknown places because of the act of some criminal minds. But those who are responsible for these devastating changes go unscathed. This crime is much more serious than other crimes, because not only the social status of families but even the future of girls is at stake. Why do youngsters, particularly college students, engage in spreading malaise against their college mates? Perhaps their families have failed to keep an eye on their activities and have close relationship with them. But one thing is sure. The fact that more videos get circulated in this fashion, gives a clue that the culprits get encouraged because of the fact that those who have done these acts in the past, have gone unpunished. Given the technology in mobile handsets these days, it has become extremely easy to capture good resolution videos even without the knowledge of the victim, and to circulate them using Bluetooth, MMS and what not. It is for ladies from all fields to come to the rescue of their sisters, and to put in relentless efforts to unmask the faces behind these misdirected escapades, and encourage girls who openly defy the criminals. Only when the future of the culprits becomes worse than that of their victims, can one hope such things to come to an end. Policemen, intelligence agencies and other government departments need to work in close liaison with women welfare department, to save girls from this torture. The same technology that has helped criminals to perpetrate crimes against girls should be used to nail them. Heads of educational institutions, where such activities are witnessed often, should have an intelligence network within their colleges, and student gatherings should be utilized to awaken the conscience of the students. Kudos to Shruti, a first year degree student of St Philomena College, Puttur, who openly came out to clear her name from controversy regarding  a video that is being attributed to her. It is heartening to note that Vishwa Hindu Parishat has come to her support. If more organizations jump into the bandwagon and pledge themselves towards weeding out such anti-social activities, we can hope for a better future for such victims. Let us take this incident as a clarion call for educating youngsters in the families that such videos do not just give them temporary sadistic pleasure, but they also ruin the future of girls and their families. More girls should stand up and protest against this sleaze. They need not be patient, they should be vocal. They should not hesitate in getting help from organizations and policemen, and they should not rest until those who play with their character become the subjects of sufferings.