5/24/22, 8:18 PM As tech spreads, Myanmar women become victims of ‘revenge porn’ | The Myanmar Times Panicked and embarrassed, she quickly changed her phone number, while telling friends and family in Yangon’s Mingalar Taung Nyunt township she lost her phone. “My friends and I reported the abusive account to Facebook, but I didn’t want to file a case at the police station. If the court case lasts too long I would be absent from work a lot,” Ma Yadana Kyaw Thu said. “Also, I don’t want my parents and relatives to know about this.” She said she had no idea who was behind the abuse, adding that it took several months before Facebook removed the fake account. Ma Khine Thu Zar, a 30-year-old married women from Tarmwe township, recalled how she suffered harassment after she lost her mobile phone last year. A man who found her phone tried to extort K100,000 (about US$85) from her, threatening to otherwise release her private pictures on Facebook with her name and Photoshop them to make her appear nude. Ma Khine Thu Zar tried to file a police complaint but after spending a day waiting at the local station she realised police were not going to take any action. She was distraught for weeks until the threats stopped. “I worried that photos would appear on other websites, or that my husband would divorce me,” she told Myanmar Now. Women’s rights and tech-focused activists say such online abuse cases are quickly becoming more frequent after internet and mobile phone use increased in Myanmar in recent years, reaching 11 million internet users with 43 million SIM cards sold. ‘Revenge porn’ abuse hits Myanmar Myanmar’s exposure to the downsides of social media networks includes hate speech, cyber-bullying, sexual harassment and, most recently, the unauthorised online publication of intimate photos and videos. The latter phenomenon – dubbed “revenge porn” in Western countries, where it has become a growing problem – has recently emerged in Myanmar, said Daw Aye Thada Hla, a communications coordinator of Myanmar Gender Equality Network. She said a growing number of victims of this abuse, mostly young women and girls, experience its devastating social and psychological impact. https://www.mmtimes.com/national-news/yangon/22900-as-tech-spreads-myanmar-women-become-victims-of-revenge-porn.html 2/6