Every Friday to be observed as Women Dignity Day: Padma

VIJAYAWADA: AP Mahila Commission Chairperson Vasireddi Padma has said every Friday will be observed as Women Dignity Day in the State.

Awareness will be created on the cybercrimes and social media abuse being faced by the women in the society.

She said the culprits who resort to abusing women on social media and harassment of women must be punished and appealed to the women to take the help of police, Mahila Commission, law enforcement agencies and NGOs.

Vasireddy Padma presided over a seminar on ‘Abuse of women in social media platform - suggestions and recommendations’ organised at a hotel here on Wednesday. Speaking on the occasion, she pointed out that women irrespective of their status, political affiliation and profession are suffering due to abuse on the social media.

She stressed on the need for all political parties to work together to protect the dignity of women. She lamented that women were posting comments against the women on the social media and strongly felt that it should be stopped.

She said some persons were resorting to character assassination of women through posts using filthy language and making derogatory comments on their personal lives. She said all political parties should work together to put an end to the social media abuse of women.

Andhra Pradesh Mahila Commission invited police officials, NGOs, members of government employees associations, women’s organisations and sought their suggestions to stop the abuse of women on social media.

She said all police stations should have cyber cells to deal with cyber crimes and social media abuse cases. ACP Supraja has said stringent laws should be enacted and the culprits should be punished for social media abuse. She said maximum punishment for the social media abuse is only seven years and felt that the lawmakers should think of increasing the punishment tenure to some more years. She said that cybercrimes take a lot of time for investigation compared to physical attacks and other crimes.

The ACP said the cybercrimes are of two types involving the morphing of images of women and the second one is online posts.

She stressed upon the need to create awareness among the women on cybercrimes, harassment, social media abuse and related subjects. She said campaigns like ‘Stay safe and Stay secure’ should be launched and awareness should be spread on how women should protect themselves from the cyber criminals. Vijayawada Mayor Rayana Bhagyalakshmi wondered why the government and law enforcement agencies have not been able to prevent the social media abuse of women.

She said several women were facing harassment and mental agony due to the trolls and personal comments on social media. All India Democratic Women’s Rights State secretary D Ramadevi, APNGOs Association president Bandi Srinivasa Rao, APJAC Amaravati chairman Bopparaju Venkateswarlu and others spoke at the seminar.

The speakers have expressed concern over the posts and harsh comments being made by some miscreants against women irrespective of their political status, profession and stature and demanded that the culprits must be punished severely.