Quebec and Ottawa are slow to take concrete action to stop insults, harassment and threats against women online, deplore those responsible for the awareness campaign Stop cyber violence.
“Every year, generations of young people are exposed to cyberviolence and who also create it themselves,” says Guylaine Maroist, co-director of the campaign. However, concrete actions are still awaited, such as the creation of training for police officers so that they can better receive complaints of online violence, she underlines, in an interview with the Duty.
This is also a request from the petition Stop cyber violence presented to the National Assembly last December by Mr.me Maroist and Léa Clermont-Dion, both directors of the documentary I salute you bitch. The film, which traces the journey of four women who have experienced online violence, was launched in conjunction with the awareness campaign and educational tools last September.
The filmmakers also traveled to Ottawa last March to launch a call for legislation and thus make the digital giants responsible for this phenomenon.
The instigators of the campaign also met the Quebec Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, as well as the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez. They pleaded that they needed funding to continue their activities for a second and third year.
“We hear that there is goodwill, but in concrete terms, nothing has been concluded,” said the campaign coordinator. Stop cyber violenceGenevieve Pigeon.
The latter would like to be able to “continue to act at the root of the problem” in particular by developing educational resources intended for the primary level.
Because beyond the 60,000 young Quebecers who have been reached by the campaign carried out mainly in secondary schools, the needs for the prevention of cyberviolence are felt from the fifth or sixth year of primary school, maintains Ms.me Pigeon. “It starts when young people have access to a cell phone. »
A setback for women’s rights
According to Guylaine Maroist, we must act quickly to stop misogynistic cyberviolence, because it represents a “real challenge for the decline of women’s rights”.
“We realize that there are young girls who will not go into politics or journalism because in their minds, more and more, being a politician or being a journalist is associated with receiving cyberviolence” , she laments.
For the director, it is unacceptable that online insults and threats continue to be trivialized, given the impact they have on victims.