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Online Safety Act to tackle cyber bullying and child sex abuse
Ellen Ransley
NCA NewsWire
January 22, 2022 4:23PM
Social media giants, sexual predators and online bullies have been put on notice, with Australia’s eSafety commissioner granted greater powers to police the internet.
The Online Safety Act, which passed parliament in 2021, officially came into effect on Sunday.
Changes included in the Act include a world-first cyber abuse take-down scheme to better protect children and adults from online bullying.
The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has also been given the authority to order online platforms to remove the “worst of the worst” content – including child sexual abuse material and terrorist material – no matter where it is hosted.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has committed to making the internet safer for Australians.
NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled Credit: News Corp Australia
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the Act also gave the eSafety Commissioner stronger “information gathering and investigative powers” to obtain identity information behind anonymous online accounts used to bully, abuse, or exchange illegal content.
Ms Inman Grant has been reappointed for another five years in the powerful role.
She said the new laws cemented her office’s role as a “world leader” in online safety.
“They place Australia at the international forefront in the fight against online abuse and harm – providing additional protections for Australians in the fight against online harms through our approach of prevention, protection, and proactive change in the online space,” she said.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has been reappointed for another five years. Supplied
Mr Fletcher said the Act was another key step in the Morrison government’s commitment to online safety.
“As more Australians work, learn and conduct business online, the government will make sure they can do so safely, and that perpetrators are being held accountable for abusive and threatening behaviour,” Mr Fletcher said.
The Act also puts big tech on notice, with basic online safety expectations now in place, setting a new benchmark for platforms to take responsibility in protecting Australian users.
“The internet has brought immense advantages, but also new risks, and Australians rightly expect the big tech companies to do more to make their products safer for users,” Mr Fletcher said.
“Australians deserve to be able to use online platforms in the knowledge that they will be safe from vile and unacceptable online abuse, along with other dangers.”
Thai Officer suspended over child sex abuse claim refuses to talk
PUBLISHED : 23 JAN 2022 AT 04:00
Trang: A policeman accused of sexually assaulting two girls over an extended period has been charged with four counts of rape and suspended from the force, said the provincial police chief yesterday.
Pol Maj Gen Santat Winson, commander of Trang police, said the 53-year-old officer, a deputy inspector, was arrested and charged on Wednesday, two days after a complaint was lodged.
The victims, aged 12 and 16, were cousins of his girlfriend and the offences allegedly began in December 2020, weeks after the girls' mother was arrested on drugs charges by officers including the suspect.
What a great guy - arrests his girlfriend then rapes her children!!!
Pol Maj Gen Santat said the officer denied the charges and refused to talk during the interrogation, after which he was released on bail while the girls had given their statements and police were waiting for results of a physical examination.
Earlier, Pavena Hongsakula, president of Pavena Hongsakul Foundation for Children and Women, raised concerns about the girls' safety after their grandmother sought help from the foundation.
Ms Pavena said yesterday the policeman faced serious charges so she questioned their decision to grant him temporary release.
The grandmother said the accused asked the girls' cousin to take the 12-year-old to live with them after her mother was arrested. The girl was repeatedly raped and asked her cousin to take her back home.
Her granddaughter then told her about the assault and when her 16-year-old sister heard about the story she also broke her silence to claim that she too had been raped.
Hymen repair surgery to be outlawed in UK
The UK government is criminalizing hymen reconstruction procedures
to protect vulnerable women and girls
UK Minister for Care and Mental Health Gillian Keegan has confirmed the government will ban the “indefensible” cosmetic surgeries that are linked to conservative cultures.
Hymen repair surgery, known as hymenoplasty, (or female genital mutilation - FGM) is currently available in UK clinics for up to £3,000 ($4,055.79) and is catering to groups that value virginity before marriage.
The procedure is closely linked with virginity testing. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that virginity testing is currently practiced in at least 20 countries, subjecting women to an intrusive examination of the hymen area.
The legislation, which is set to be introduced this year, will see parliament criminalize “aiding or abetting” a person carrying out hymenoplasty in the UK, as well as making it a crime to take a girl abroad for the procedure.
Those found guilty could face up to five years in prison. The UK government hopes that the new legislation will safeguard “vulnerable women and girls in this country.”
Actually, FGM has been illegal in the UK for many years and no-one has been convicted of it yet.
“Hymenoplasty causes trauma and in around half of cases, it fails to make the woman or girl bleed the next time she has intercourse, leaving her highly vulnerable to 'honor'-based abuse or even 'honor' killing,” Diana Nammi, executive director of the Iranian & Kurdish Women's Rights Organization, said.
The Iranian & Kurdish Women's Rights Organization has campaigned for a ban on the surgical procedure, calling it an “invasive surgery” that is often carried out “under duress.”
In Islam, men can be rapists or child rapists, but women have to be virgins.
Scottish civil court rules soldier raped woman in landmark case
By Simon Druker
A Scottish civil court ruled Thursday that a serving British soldier raped a woman after meeting her at nightclub in 2015. The court awarded her approximately $160,000 in damages. This comes after the charges were found to be "not proven" in criminal trial in 2017. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 27 (UPI) -- A civil court in Scotland ruled Thursday, that an active-duty British soldier raped a woman in 2015, after a criminal court in that country found the charges were "not proven."
The civil court awarded the woman, who is only identified by the pseudonym AB, approximately $159,824 in damages, according to court documents.
The ruling is only the second of its kind in recent Scottish legal history, according to The Guardian.
The victim met Sean Diamond, now 28, in a nightclub in July in the coastal city of Dundee, not far from where he was stationed at a military base, according to court records. They later returned to her friend's apartment where the woman fell asleep. She testified that she woke up with Diamond on top of her. She told him to stop and get off of her, but he didn't and she lost consciousness.
She filed a police report the next day and Diamond was prosecuted in 2017.
In the ensuing criminal trial, Diamond claimed the sex was consensual and the court returned a "not proven" verdict, which neither finds a person guilty nor fully exonerates them.
"The way you're treated is literally like you've committed a crime," AB told The Guardian.
A friend convinced her to file a civil suit against Diamond.
"I do not accept the defender's version of what happened in the living room. It is a radically different account of events from that given by the pursuer. It does not account for the pursuer's evidence of apparent loss of consciousness, now attributed to a dissociative state," Sheriff KJ Campbell QC wrote in his ruling.
"It is the cogency of that evidence, which leads me to prefer the pursuer's account of what happened in the living room when she and the defender were the only people present. These strands are supported by the consistent evidence of the pursuer's distress in the early hours of 15 July 2015.
"There was no evidence that the pursuer indicated express consent in any way. As I have indicated above, I do not accept the defender's account of what happened when he and the pursuer were alone. There was no other evidence which might amount to an indication of consent by the pursuer. Accordingly, I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the defender raped the pursuer. That is sufficient to establish liability."
The amount of damages includes a calculation to account for interest since 2015, however the court found money was not a motivating factor.
"It is important to emphasize that this action is of course not an appeal against the decision of a jury in properly constituted criminal proceedings, but it is a separate vindication of civil rights, in a different court, operating a different standard of proof," wrote Campbell.
"No amount of money would remove the memory and the trauma that I've lived with over the last six and a half years," AB told The Guardian.
The victim was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, eventually losing her job. She has since moved to Morocco and gotten married.
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