By: Mahfooz Ahmad Bakshi
Sextortion or sexual harassment is the process of blackmailing / extorting in which the victims are forced against their will to perform a sexual act by someone who then threatens them by warning to expose their sexual history on public domains without consent for financial gains. People who are the ages of 13-18, teenagers have the highest chances of getting into this trap, Otherwise, every single individual may get into it.
Sextortion can be done in many ways, like, webcam hacking, phishing, device hacking and etc!. Sextortion sends the adolescents into a high level of agony which gets augmented day by day and hence compels them to suicide awfully.
Sextortion is taking innocent lives from us every day and everywhere, all people around the world can get into this trap, and people need to be aware of this. If social media has helped us a lot, it has helped the scammers as well. Social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, etc are the most capable and productive tools for scammers. Sextortion takes place when an individual receives a message from a strange girl in sight but a gang of scammers in real. Both get into a deep conversation which leads to friendship among them and tardily the friendship turns into a relationship, that girl named account of scammers traps the boy patiently and asks him if he can introduce his close friends and relatives to her, the boy being innocent introduces her with everyone. Suddenly she seduces the boy with some nude pictures.
After looking at the nude stuff, eventually, they start to video call ( nude video calls). Where scammers present a gorgeous lady who seems real in sight of victims. The girl named account then takes the screen recordings of their nude video chats along with the boy’s face. And this is where the Sex tortion commences.
Now after a while, they call and demand him to transfer some cash to their account otherwise his nude history of him will be sent to his relatives and friends. His respect among his relatives will be deteriorated, threatening the young lad in every possible way. To save himself sends them the cash as much as they asked for!
After that, the scammers may keep quiet for some days, and then they may call that boy again and demand the money more than he ultimately sent them. This process never ends until the life of that young and innocent boy ends up. The second most common way of sextortion that the scammers use is, they send some phishing links to their victims, this works if the victim clicks on the link only! After clicking the link there opens a tab which asks people to give them access to their Mobile phone, if the victim does so then scammers will get access to his phone that’s how the scammers can get the personal information about the owner of that device (Mobile phone) including his pictures which then gets edited in a nude way and the further process is the same. To save himself an individual thinks of no other options but Suicide, even after spoiling scammers’ pockets with money! The worst thing about sextortion is that the power of extorters is usually enhanced by the silence and the shyness of the victim. Many young lads died after falling prey to sextortion on social media platforms!
It’s an emerging threat that is running in our society, it must be stopped otherwise it will stop our nation from developing. The number of extortion cases using nude pictures by the end of July 2021, was 134. By August 17, the number of those cases had reached 171, according to the cybercrime cell officials. The total number of cybercrime cases has gone up in the past few years with 7,795 in 2019, 14,950 in 2020, and over 11,000 so far in 2021. With that, the number of cases in all three major categories and 65 sub-categories has gone up.
People must secure their social media accounts, and shouldn’t click on the unwanted links in their mailbox sent by some strangers. And if you are the victim of sextortion then don’t pay what they demand, go to the police, file a case and yes don’t delete anything, explain the whole story to the police officer. If ever you receive the video calls from the suspected person then don’t pick it up just block.
Don’t allow the untrustworthy app to access your phone’s file managers etc. Don’t share your OTPs and passwords with anyone, and choose strong passwords to secure your privacy. If you believe that you are a victim of sextortion or know someone else who is, call your local FBI officer. It should be elusive for the fraudsters to scam innocent people. Don’t forget to take the following steps;
Cover the cameras of your devices, including computers and webcams, with the help of tapes, stickers, or your thumb. Set all of your social media accounts to private. Never log on to online dating sites. Most of the sextortion cases popped up among those who logged in to online dating sites. Never ever send compromising images of yourself to anyone. And most of all, Do not Suicide; It’s not permissible to end the life by ourself in Islam as well as in all the religions, whether it’s Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, Although, in the Holy Quran in Chapter 94, Verse 5–6 there is written that, “Verily, with every difficulty there is relief. Verily, with every difficulty there is relief.”
There is no problem without the solution so why do we end our lives when Allah have said that before every problem, Allah created the solution, by committing suicide we will get nothing but just the burden of sins whose consciences we have to suffer hereafter.
The author can be mailed at bakshimahfooz@gmail.com
