Qamar, a 19-year-old girl from Aleppo, has more than 4,000 followers on Facebook. Her photos are admired and commented on both inside and outside Syria. She even comments on some of her own photos, “How beautiful I am.”

But the photos this girl was posting, of herself or with friends, were not hers at all. They belong to a girl called Samar, then 16 years old, from Tartus in Syria. Someone appears to have decided to impersonate her.

“Aren't these your photos? Have you got another account under a different name?” Samar remembers the questions her friend asked when she contacted her to tell her that a Facebook account with a different name was using her personal photos.

Samar was stunned and checked the anonymous account to try to understand what had happened: “Who did she talk to using my name? What did she tell them? What can I do?” Straight away she asked her friends to report the page. Even though she was notified that the report had been accepted, the account was not closed down.

Cross-Border Violence

The same thing happened to 19-year-old Lubna*, except that the owner of the fake account, which used her name and photos, contacted her circle of acquaintances. Her mother was also harassed by the man behind the account.Lubna, only 16 at the time, contacted him and it turned out he was in his forties and not living in Syria.

She repeatedly asked him to stop harassing her, but he persisted. He set up several fake accounts in her name and her mother's name, sending friend requests to her friends and relatives. When he posted personal photos of Lubna it prompted her to tell all her friends to report these fake accounts. But the man behind the accounts did not stop there; he even targeted her friends on Facebook and sent them indecent messages.

“All we could do was report the fake accounts, because he’s living abroad,” says Lubna. Those around her told Luban that even Interpol could not reach him.

Worrying Statistics

What Samar and Lubna experienced is a common form of online exploitation women face, which is often accompanied by other crimes such as sexual blackmail or deliberate leaking of personal data and images.

In 2020, the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU), part of the UK-based magazine The Economist, ran a study looking into the global prevalence of online violence against women. It showed that the most common forms of this type of violence were misinformation and defamation (67 percent), cyberstalking (66 percent), hate speech (65 percent) and identity theft (63 percent).

The study, covering over 51 countries, suggests that 38 percent of women have experienced violence online.

A 2023 study into the same issue by the SalamaTech team also found that online violence affects the majority of women. Six out of ten had experienced abuse, usually of more than one type.

The ability of individuals to hide their own identity and create multiple others online has boosted rates of digital violence, according to  psychotherapist Dania Abo Khashaba. “Online violence is pervasive because it’s difficult to identify the perpetrators. And the fact that young men and women don’t know about the legal controls exacerbates the problem. Many young men turn to online harassment to satisfy their needs, thinking there won’t be any severe consequences.”

One form of identity theft is creating a fake social media account for a girl with the aim of exploiting her or damaging her reputation and credibility.

17-year-old Maryam was blackmailed online by a young man who is four years older than her . She met Anwar* for the first time during a family gathering. He contacted her online asking to have a relationship with him, but she refused. In revenge, Anwar created a fake Facebook account using her name and photos and proceeded to contact her friends.

Maryam and her friends tried repeatedly to report this account after Anwar sent them screenshots of conversations he had had while pretending to be Maryam. The conversations were not pornographic, but he warned her that this was only the beginning.

Playing on Need and Vulnerability

“You're just a little girl, and you're trying to threaten me? Do you know what my family and I could do if you post these conversations?” This is one of the threatening messages Mira* received from a man in his thirties who pursued her and trapped her through blackmail, initially using honeyed words and friendly expressions like, “You are a nice person and look older than your age,” according to Mira.

The messages from him began with compliments but quickly turned coarse. Mira threatened to post his messages on social media, but he mocked her and her ability to do that, since he had relatives powerful enough to stop her.

But Mira ignored these threats, blocked the harasser, and informed  her family.

Psychologist Dania Abo Khashaba says that the majority of blackmail cases she has treated stem from the girl's emotional need. The young man exploits her need for love and appreciation, then an emotional relationship is formed, after which he asks her for private photos and videos. The man then goes on to make sexual demands, threatening to expose her and post the photos and videos he has if she does not comply with his demands, exploiting the victim's fear of her family and her ignorance of the law.

The Victim Pays the Price

Samar recalls the difficult period she went through: ‘I cried for ten days nonstop, I had headaches, I was dizzy, I was sick. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I couldn't even study.”

Someone who is exposed to online violence becomes fearful and wary, Dania Abo Khashaba explains. And this always makes them imagine the “worst-case scenario.” The victim loses the ability to concentrate and becomes more nervous and emotional because of feelings of shame, guilt and remorse. “In every case I’ve dealt with, it’s not the perpetrator she feels angry with, as much as herself. And society reinforces these feelings, as though it’s the victim’s fault.”

Cybercrime Law No. 20 of 2022 contains several articles which criminalize acts of online violence, such as Article 14 on identity theft, Article 17 on sending unsolicited messages, Article 21 on breaching privacy, and Article 26, which addresses violating modesty and decency.

The law stipulates a two to three-year jail sentence and a fine between three and four million Syrian pounds ($1,194 - $1,592) for anyone who publishes or threatens to publish on the internet indecent images, videos, conversations or audio recordings belonging to another person, even if they were obtained with their consent. The punishment increases to five to seven years in prison and a fine of four to five million Syrian pounds (approximately $1,592 - $1,990) if the victim is a minor.

Lawyer Madeline Okyane says that the Cybercrime Law overlaps with the Syrian Penal Code, which needs amending when it comes to women and minors, because the current law marginalises women. Article 33 of the Cybercrime Law, however, asks for harsher penalties if the victim is a minor.

Under Syrian law, a minor is anyone under the age of 18. Article 1 of the Juvenile Delinquents Act No. 18 of March 30, 1974, states that legal ageis 18: "The following terms shall have the meanings assigned to them in the application of this law. 1- Juvenile: any male or female who has not reached the age of eighteen."

Lawyer Madeline Okyane recalls that one of her clients was a victim of online violence. When she decided to take legal action, the prosecutor questioned her “provocatively”. She says that kind of treatment discourages victims from seeking legal redress.

None of the women we interviewed actually took legal action, but only threatened their abusers that they would do so. Samar says, “I was afraid to make a complaint... I didn’t want to get into some scary battle.” She was afraid of how the person behind the fake account would react, as well as how her family would blame her for posting her photos on Facebook.

Samar contacted the woman behind the fake account, who told her that she thought “the photos were of some actress or something” and didn't see any problem with using them. When Samar threatened to take legal action, she deleted all the photos.

Samar's nightmare was over, but she says that the same account then started using photos of another girl. Samar deleted all her photos, closed her account for a while, then reopened it and made her photos visible only to friends. “I feel like I've been released from prison... I'm free.” 

*The names of all the girls we interviewed have been changed.