Technology-Facilitated Violence Against Women in Singapore: Key Considerations

Abstract

Technology-Facilitated violence against women (TFVW) is readily becoming a key site of analysis for feminist criminologists. The scholarship in this area has identified online sexual harassment, contact-based harassment, imagebased abuse, and gender-based cyberhateamong othersas key manifestations of TFVW. It has also unpacked the legal strategies available to women seeking formal justice outcomes. However, much of the existing empirical scholarship has been produced within countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and there has been limited research on this phenomenon within South East Asia. As such, this chapter maps how technology is shaping Singaporean women's experiences of gendered, sexual, and domestic violence. To do so, it draws upon findings from a research project which examined TFVW in Singapore by utilizing semistructured interviews with frontline workers in the fields of domestic and sexual violence and LGBT services. Drawing from Dragiewicz et al.'s (2018) work on Technology-Facilitated coercive control (TFCC), I argue that victims-survivors of dating, domestic, and family violence need to be provided with support that is TFCC informed and technically guided. I also suggest that further research is needed to fully understand the prevalence and nature of TFVW in the Singaporean context.

Addressing Online Violence Against Women and Girls in the Commonwealth Asia Region

“…Likewise, offenders who possessed or shared images were charged with making, distributing or possessing an obscene film, under the Films Act 1998. These laws were outdated with regard to addressing the new modalities of IBA facilitated by the Internet, such as the distribution of intimate images or threats to do so without consent (Vitis, 2021).…”

“…One of the aims of the Criminal Law Reform Bill 2019 has been to recognise different forms of IBA as unique offences (Vitis, 2021).…”