Information and Communication Technologies: Method of Commission or Basis for Distinguishing a Separate Form of Domestic Violence?

Abstract

The legal nature of cyber violence in the context of domestic violence is examined, and the inappropriateness of singling it out as a separate form is substantiated. Attention is paid to the analysis of current domestic legislation, in particular the Law of Ukraine “On Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence”, which defines four forms of violence: physical, psychological, economic, and sexual. It is concluded that information and communication technologies do not create a new form of violence, but are only a technologically determined means of realising its existing manifestations, and cyber violence has no independent legal meaning, since it is based on the same mechanisms of influence: humiliation, control, persecution, pressure, and deprivation of access to resources, which are characteristic of psychological, economic, and sexual violence.

The article analyses the typical forms of violent actions committed with the help of information and communication technologies: cyberstalking, digital control, blocking online banking, blackmail with intimate materials, etc. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the concept of “bullying of a participant in the educational process” set out in part 1 of Article 173-4 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences, which provides for liability for violence committed, in particular, using electronic means of communication. This confirms the existence of a legal approach whereby digital tools do not transform the nature of the offence, but only modify the manner in which it is committed.

A definition of the term “information and communication technologies as a means of committing domestic violence” is suggested. The amendments have been initiated to the definitions of economic, psychological, and sexual violence set forth in the Law of Ukraine “On Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence”.