Social worker and photographer Sabaritha Ernavoor was merely four years old when she lost her mother to suicide. “It was only after I grew up did I realise that she took the decision over a blackmail threat. Though the underlying reason remained unclear, the blackmail abetted her to take her life. I could never understand why someone would want to harm another human like that,” she recalls. At the age of 15, she received obscene messages from a boy of her age, leaving a lasting impact on her. “I had a basic button mobile phone. I was too young to even understand what certain messages meant. I only knew they were abusive and it shook me up. Why would someone misuse technology like this, I wondered,” shares Sabaritha, who is now on a wishful journey to fight against the crimes and violence children and women face daily, especially the ones that take place under the convenient cloak of the cyber world. In her photo series, titled ‘Infected Net’, Sabaritha captures the impact cyber violence has on the mental, psychological and emotional wellbeing of women, who are at the receiving end.
According to the Internet Crime Report for 2019, released by the USA’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, India stands third in the world among the top 20 countries that are victims of internet crimes. In a data released by National Crime Records Bureau, cases of cyberstalking or bullying of women increased by 36 per cent from 542 in 2017 to 739 in 2018, while the conviction rate for cyberstalking or bullying of women and children fell by 15 per cent to 25 per cent in 2018 from 40 per cent in 2017.
Violence in the cyber world
“Usually, when we talk about violence against women, crimes that happen in the digital space are the last in the list to be spoken about. The focus mostly is on physical violence and rightly so. But, in the digital era, more light needs to be shed on cyber violence too,” she offers. But unfortunately, receiving distasteful and crude messages in the ‘other messages’ inbox, hate comments on social media posts, harmless teasing-turned-viciousness, and whatnots, have been structurally trivialised within the virtual space so often that the victims do not even know that the harassment that they are facing is not normal. “Because of such normalisation, women often don’t report it and don’t use existing grievance mechanisms either. It is sadder when instead of helping the women in distress, people jump in and say: ‘just block the offender’, or question: ‘What kind of posts do you share on your page? Maybe it happened because of that’, blaming and shaming the victim instead of the perpetrator,” rues the graduate from Madras School of Social Work, who has been working with non-governmental organisations for the last three-odd-years.
Through the lens
A native of Minjur, a few years ago, Sabaritha moved to the city to chisel her own future and lend a helping hand to others during the process. “After amma’s demise, my father estranged from the family and I was raised by my grandmother and a few relatives. When I did not have enough funds to go to school, the owner of a grocery store in our town sponsored my education. After completion of my school education, I decided to pursue a degree in social work, here in Chennai. In the last few years, independence has also come with its share of loneliness. During such times, I’ve only had my phone to connect with others. Messages that people sent to me – both good and bad influenced me and I started photographing myself, capturing emotions that were elicited by the messages. The process was cathartic, to say the least,” she details.
Infected Net, a series of monochrome self-portraits, also trails a similar pattern. But, the idea was born out of riveting conversations Sabaritha had with women around her. “I wanted to understand the experiences of other women. So, on my way to work, I used to call women from my immediate circle and acquaintances who were willing to talk about it and listen to their experiences for hours. The nature of messages everyone received was deeply disturbing and somewhere along the process, I decided to document it,” says Sabaritha, who spoke to 20-odd women, mostly young adults, for the project in a span of eight months.
Most often, since these crimes go unreported and are underreported, creating awareness about cyber laws and the legal framework has also been a work in progress for the community worker. “The messages received from strangers and fake IDs and the screenshots are almost immediately deleted by the women. Many don’t report it because of the lack of awareness of available legal options, fear of defamation, societal stigma and lack of familial support. Many women remain tight-lipped about the experiences, especially if the crime involves a threat of leaking of intimate images and so on,” she says, bringing us to the perpetual question of ‘Who kept the woman’s dignity in her body?’
"The society has, for so long, glorified that the dignity of a woman lies in the ‘sanctity and chastity’ of her body. This has only given advantage for perpetrators to use it against those from my ilk to shame them. It’s unfortunate. That’s one of the many reasons I decided to shoot nude self-portraits. It’s my body. It’s made of blood, flesh and bones just like everyone else. But why are we pushed to carry this burden and associated only with our bodies and vaginas?” she asks.
Using the camera and the art of photography as a form of self-expression, Sabaritha shot images of herself, showing the different layers of the darker side of the burning issue, interspersing it with screenshots of abusive messages she sourced from women from her immediate circle. “I would be lying if I told that the process was easy. I had to revisit the messages and screenshots to feel the emotions. There was a point when I felt very low and anxious. But I powered my way through,” she says.
Applause and advice
When the photos were shared with fellow creatives and photographers, Sabaritha says that while women were appreciative of it, men had unsolicited advice, ‘well-meaning’ opinions and moral lessons to offer. “I was asked not to share the photos with the outside world because… ‘I am a woman, what would people think?’ I was even asked if I come from a ‘family’. However, there were a handful of men who did appreciate the effort. But the number is very bleak. A woman being comfortable in her own skin is something many can still not digest," says Sabaritha, who hopes to make this documentation of violation a long-term project. “Cyber violence is not specific to a country, region or language. I want to talk to women from other states too and document it,” shares the 20-something-old.
Sabaritha also wishes to bring fundamental changes in the way people's mindsets are wired and this, she tells can be achieved only if people are taught from a young age. “I want to focus on children, teach them to be rational, gender-sensitive and treat everyone as equals. The children of today need to understand politics and introducing them with the right resources is something I want to work on too. More photography experiments addressing women-related issues are also in the pipeline. Gender equality is the way to human liberation,” she concludes.