One Friday morning, Benitha (second name withheld) woke up bored and wanted some ‘plot’ for the day, since it was the last Friday of her second term holiday. She wanted to make the most of it, heading into the third term- her final high school year, since she is a senior six candidate. She logged into her snapchat and found a message from someone called “Breezy 103”, who was inviting her for a day house party -some sort of ‘Bye Bye Vacancy’ outing. At first, she did not recognise who Breezy was, but he sounded like he knew her very well, including the school she goes to and her friends. He indicated that some of her friends would be there too, and went on to mention them by name. Convinced, she offered to ‘pass by’. Since it was during the day, she did not have to tell her parents that she was going somewhere, because she thought she would be back home before 6pm. However, she alerted the house help. After all, the address was leading somewhere in the Kagarama neighbourhood- not far from where she lives, in Kicukiro district. “When I got there, the house was inside a well secured fence. I did not recognise any faces immediately but they were all like my agemates. Later, I saw a girl who goes to my school, but we are not close friends,” recalls Benitha. “She came over and told me to be comfortable. Eventually when Breezy came, I did not recognise him. I said I could stay an hour or two since it was still early,” adds the 17-year-old. Encountering hell At the party, in a house which didn’t seem to have adults around, they started consuming shots of alcohol in a truth or dare game, while others smoked cigarettes and all. Not a keen alcohol drinker, Benitha found herself being forced to take many shots of Tequila during the different alcohol and sex-related games they played to make the party ‘more fun.’ In a few moments, she felt dizzy and ‘Breezy’, who he didn’t know his real name, started getting closer and closer, pretending to be ‘supportive and caring’. When she felt tipsy, she wanted to leave but Breezy insisted that she could stay a little longer, and proposed that she takes a rest in one of the rooms. At this point, he had earned her trust. He led her to a room and before she knew it, he was trying to force himself on her. Weak, tipsy and feeling threatened, Benitha gave in to some of his advances but convinced him that she will make it up to him some other time, since it is the first time they had met. It was already getting to 9pm. Luckily, he eased up and allowed her to go but it was a close shave because he seemed to get more aggressive as time went on during their encounter. After exiting the gate, Benitha went and reported the incident and also told her parents about the ordeal. Benitha was lucky to survive this incident which began with a simple social media message but not many girls get to survive such a tribulation, let alone being able to report it and or talk about it with parents or guardians. Many get raped, blackmailed or in some cases experience bodily harm from people they merely know, who they connected with through social media platforms. Like many young people across the globe, Rwandan youth are finding themselves getting caught in the social media frenzy sweeping across the world, exploiting platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and many others, to amass a following and reach. ALSO READ: Twitter rape claims: Victims’ quest for justice or social media abuse? A concerning issue It is a challenge even Rwanda Investigations Bureau (RIB) has picked keen interest in, considering that cases of cybercrimes linked to social media, involving young people, have been on the increase in recent years. RIB attributes the increase of such crimes to many reasons, including the search for views, followers, money and popularity, which lead to young people doing things which they shouldn’t otherwise be doing, in most cases ending up engaging in crimes -knowingly or unknowingly. As the social media platforms get more popular, young people are finding themselves at a centre of a dilemma they didn’t anticipate and according to RIB Spokesperson, Thierry B. Murangira, this is something the investigative body is seriously looking into. While they come with their benefits, including being income generators, the ugly underbelly of social media is beginning to rear itself on the youth, with young people in Rwanda experiencing the downside of the platforms in their numbers. Several arrests have since been made and rackets of young people misleading others into committing cyber crimes have been busted in recent months. It is a challenge Murangira says they want to nip in the bud early before the situation goes out of hand, considering that the youth form the biggest chunk of the population and they have access to technology. More money, more problems It is also an issue attributed to many factors, including exposure and access to resources, also linked to development (who knew that could be a problem?), where many young people are born in families that have means and resources. The RIB Spokesperson says that access to resources and money, either from family or income from what the young people are doing, legal or illegal, means that they have access to money (sometimes lots of it), revealing the downside of development. “It is difficult to name any crime that young people are not involved in, simply because the youth make up the majority of the Rwandan population and they form a section of the society that is active,” Murangira says. “They have energy and they are hot blooded. They can take risks to make money or to make ends meet and they are also the ones exposed to the risk of getting delinquent,” he adds. Access to money means that they have access to alcohol, drugs and everything else they want, but also the desire for many to finance that kind of lifestyle will in most cases lead them to committing crimes. Social media, along with other technologies become the tool or channel through which they commit these crimes. Intervention and Awareness Over the past few months, RIB has upped efforts to sensitize the society, young people in particular, on the dangers of these platforms and how some of them could be committing crimes, which definitely puts them in the crosshairs of law enforcement. Murangira says that there are certain crimes that young people are committing due to the pressure of racking up social media views, impressions, engagements or simply the desire to go viral. The RIB Spokesperson says one of the outcomes they are seeing is the promotion of anti-values or things that go against known societal values that emphasise decency, all in the name of wanting to go viral. “It is something that is becoming more rampant. You see people on YouTube boasting about their body count- the number of men they have slept with. What value does such information add to our society, apart from normalising immoral behaviours?” Murangira asks. This crime, according to Murangira, also draws in adults who are hungry for fame, giving ridiculous YouTube interviews laced with sexual obscenities and other odd behaviours they openly talk about, which could mislead youngsters. The pressure for views Murangira says has not spared vulnerable people, including mentally challenged or disabled persons who are not able to make decisions on their own, but get paraded on cameras to make outlandish interviews for YouTubers to gain views. RIB says it has come to a point where people go before cameras to promote adultery, engage in sexual acts, including pornography, body shaming and many other delinquent acts. As a matter of fact, the investigative body has listed at least 15 local YouTube channels that they say promote anti-values and prostitution. This, according to Murangira, is a major challenge which they will not sit back to watch grow. What is even more worrisome is the danger these platforms are exposing the youth to. Among them is cyber-stalking, cyber bullying, blackmail, impersonation and sextortion, which is becoming more rampant. Murangira says that these social media ‘hook-ups’ lead young people into engaging in acts that involve exchanging photos or videos which can later be used to blackmail or extort money from someone, by threatening to expose them. This is yet another crime that draws in adults, particularly those involved in the social media frenzy and are hungry for views. It often happens when people who meet on social media break up or disagree on certain things and in some cases, it is a deliberate move by some individuals who want to use others, revenge over something or are jilted. The numbers speak for themselves According to RIB, in the last 5 years from 2019-2023, 46 cases of sextortion linked to social media have been investigated. In 2019, three cases were recorded and in 2020 the number grew to 8 cases. The following year, 2021, cases of sex-related blackmail grew to 12 but the number declined to 8 in 2022. Last year, the cases increased to 15. However, the majority go unreported, with many fearing further repercussions. In most cases, they involve people threatening to expose videos or pictures of others if they are not given a certain amount of money or they involve ex-lovers who fell out over something. In some cases, what starts as a simple conversation develops into something intimate before the people get to meet and the perpetrator ensures they earn the trust of their victim, who ends up sharing private photos. Such was the case for Noella, 18, who met someone on TikTok and they developed a relationship, which later became intimate but did not last long, before the young man she met on the platform started acting weird. When she called time on the relationship, the young man went berserk and threatened to expose her private videos and photos. Fearing that she would be exposed, Noella was forced to stay in an abusive relationship, until she got the guts to report him. According to Murangira, in some cases, the victims are forced to sign documents or pay a certain amount of money, just to safeguard their personality from being defamed. They are manipulated into living in fear all the time knowing that someone possesses their photos or videos. What does the law say? A person found guilty of threatening blackmail through extortion is sentenced to 3-5 years in jail and a fine of Rwf1,000,000 to 2,000,000. Similarly, if a person is found guilty of forcing someone to sign a document that blackmails them is sentenced to 1-3 years in prison and a fine of Rwf100, 000-300,000, according to article 129 of Law No. 68/2018 of 30/08/2018, which provides for crimes and penalties in general. Murangira encourages the youth to be on the lookout for people who use social media platforms to target their victims, who they later abuse sexually or can lead into committing crimes, knowingly or unknowingly. RIB further cautions that such individuals use a smooth and convincing language, which leaves their victims unsuspecting, up until the point they achieve their goal, sometimes when it is a little too late. “Young people need to know the consequences of these social media platforms. Read the early warning signs, do not share your details or private files and most importantly, be quick to report,” advises Murangira. He further warns that where this advice is not heeded early, the law will take its course because law enforcers will not sit back and watch as the country’s young population goes to waste, reminding the youth to be mindful of what they do on these platforms. Social media platforms have brought a lot of opportunities. The youth need to exploit these opportunities but within the limits of law, he says. We also encourage young people to exhibit decent behaviour online. What you can't do offline do not do it online. Murangira concludes.
