Friday, March 8, 2024 – Institut Français Indonésie (IFI-LIP) Yogyakarta held a round table discussion entitled Gender-based violence in a digital society as a form of international women’s day celebration. IFI invited Wening Udasmoro (lecturer of bachelor of french language and literature) and Ratna Noviani (lecturer of master of cultural and media studies) from Universitas Gadjah Mada. In addition, IFI also invited Marie Nastorg (PhD student in droit de la non-discrimination) from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers online. The discussion was held in the IFI auditorium, with François Dabin as the moderator. The round table discussion was attended by around 105 participants. The number of participants was certainly influenced by the interesting and important theme of the discussion, namely online gender-based violence or online GBV.
This discussion was spoken in English, and it was an action to support the Sustainable Development Goals, the goal of quality education and gender equality. What was conveyed by all the speakers proved the action. First, according to Nastorg, as the first speaker to present her argument, she stated that online GBV often occurs in higher education and labor environments, and most forms of violence are discrimination of women’s roles in these two spheres. Wening went on to say that cases of online GBV in higher education tend to be underreported because of the difficulty of reporting the case, even though regulations related to it already exist. Finally, Ratna expressed her opinion that the prevention and handling of online GBV requires collective awareness from the victim’s environment and the digital environment.
This round table discussion concluded that it is important for the community to raise awareness of the vulnerability of online GBV in an era which is dominated by social media users. The hope of all speakers is that the discussion can inspire the audience to become wise while using social media, and be able to teach the same thing to others.
[Public Relation Faculty of Cultural Science, Penulis: Jasmine Nabila D
Editor: Rifal Fadlurrahman, Sandya Kirani]
