Women in Idlib face online harassment
Many women in Idlib have been subjected to online harassment and blackmail, where their personal data posted on social media have been exploited for financial or moral gain, or for sexual exploitation purposes.
Women in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib are facing increasing cyberharassment, as many are subjected to moral and material exploitation.
Abeer Qadour, a 20-year-old woman from Idlib city, had her education and future ruined after being subjected to online harassment by a young man who deliberately harassed her and violated her privacy on social media.
She told Al-Monitor, “It all started when I [added] this guy to my Facebook friends list some time ago. He would regularly comment on my posts, then things evolved. After a period of time, he started getting into the details of my private life, and then he asked me out. When I refused, he photoshopped my profile picture to make it look like I was indecently dressed, and he started threatening that he would publish it.”
Qadour said that she did not respond to the harasser and blocked him. But it was not the end. He sent the photoshopped picture to her brothers’ accounts. They hit her and forced her to drop out of school. In their eyes, she was the guilty one.
