Global effort needed on online abuse, says Deputy

Wednesday 04 March 2015

Jersey needs to be part of an international effort to treat online abuse as a crime and in particular to protect women and young girls, says Deputy Carolyn Labey.

Deputy Labey has just returned from a conference with other politicians from around the world that focused on a robust response to cyber crimes, at which a researcher said that gender-related violence cost the economy £23 billion per year in the UK alone.

The Deputy joined Deputies Anne Pryke and Louise Doublet at the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians event in Gibraltar on “The Role of Parliamentarians in Ending Violence against Women”.

She said: “We need to make online abuse a criminal issue rather than asking people to take stuff off the internet. We have got to target perpetrators and get some international recognition, and regardless of which jurisdiction a server is regsistered in, we should have some form of international law so that we can target abuse and harassment of people.

“And we need to put domestic violence higher up the agenda, because while it’s all very well to say it’s a priority, is it really?

“If nothing else will convince people, it’s the economic cost because some of the figures that were given to us from an academic at the conference were shocking.”