The first session of 16 days activity on “prevent violence against women” was held on November 27th, 2020 with the title “Online Harassment and Techniques to be Secured in Online”. The guest for the session was  Mr. Sayed Nasirullah, Senior Assistant Commissioner, Cyber Security and Crime Division, Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, Dhaka Metropolitan Police and the session was hosted by Ms. Mahbuba Sultana Coordinator, Take Back The Tech Bangladesh. The focus point of this session was to create and increase awareness to prevent online harassment and violence.

We always keep talking about how to reduce online crime, how to prevent violence against women. In response to this question, Syed Nasirullah said, "In the current situation, the tendency to commit crimes has increased because of Covid because we are now working much more online than usual. Besides, many people have lost their jobs due to Covid and unemployment has increased." So now people are being deceived by bad people through various apps online. So at this time the results of this campaign will not be seen much, but as the time gets better,  we will be able to feel the changes.

"No technology in the world brings 100% security," by highlighting this point Mr. Nasirullah said, it is a big thinking issue of how we can stay safe online. Somewhere a gap of information remains. We are logged in to social media at different times on different known & unknown devices which should not be done in any way. No one should merges their Facebook and Instagram accounts. Moreover, everyone should add legacy contact on Facebook so that even if someone reports it, it can be brought back.

Most of the victims of online harassment from all over the world are girls & women. To reduce this harassment, a hotline number and a Facebook page has been started and provided to all the people in Bangladesh with the help of Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Regarding this matter Mr Nasirullah said that this online help service started from Bangladesh Police Headquarter and they named it as “Cyber help for Women”. If anybody searches it by writing “Police Cyber Support for Women”, they will be able to find the page easily. Besides, the visitors will see there hotline number: 01320-000888 and email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The discussion was concluded by urging and thanking everyone for raising awareness.