#MyNumberMyStory: Where do we go then if we're not safe even online?

Any young girl just beginning to wade into the waves of social media is inevitably warned by an adult, "be careful."

She has heard that same warning walking to school, taking a quiet street home, or stepping into any space where she is visible.

And she shrugs, not because she doesn't care, but because she doesn't yet understand what she is meant to fear. What danger? What threat? She is still learning what safety means.

She is still learning that the burden of protection is not meant to be hers alone.

Digital violence against women is not a personal failure but a structural one, and it demands systemic legal, technological and societal reforms.

Because safety is not something a girl earns by caution. It is something her environment must guarantee. Her home, her school, her street, even her world online.

So if not at home, or in the streets, then where? The internet? Even that's not safe for us? She might ask.

With a shameful heaviness, we may respond. And she will not like the answer. But we must say it anyway. Because, for every woman, this is a reality that bears more harshness than most. Harassment is almost inevitable, not because women "fail" to protect themselves, but because systems fail to protect them.

This painstaking caution may save another young girl from something as ugly and traumatic as many of us faced as children. Only now, the dangers are sharper, faster, and more technologically scaled.

#MyNumberMyStory

This past week, we all noticed a shift in our online conversations. You may have seen it in your feed: a photograph repeated across timelines, an unflinching gaze straight into the camera.

On each woman's face, neck, hand, wrist: a number. What does each number mean? It is a story of endurance, pain carried silently, violence absorbed.

In these posts on social media, they didn't shout their stories but wrote them on their bodies.

The exact number of rape threats, slut-shaming comments, unsolicited nudes and much more.

As the trend grew, activists, students and ordinary women poured in their voices, the timeline beginning around 25 November.

But it was the posts from popular artists, those with enormous followings, that jolted national attention, and rightfully so.

Actress Nusrat Imrose Tisha shared an unfiltered close-up: a red "9" on her cheek – the daily tally of attacks she endures. "People may see just a number," she wrote, "but I see everything I've endured and everything I've overcome."

Runa Khan revealed a trembling 24. Rafiath Rashid Mithila declared, "35 is My Number." Sabnam Faria held up 1000, smudged like an open wound. Mousumi Hamid marked 72. Putul Sajia Sultana wrote 9. Ridy Sheikh – 1. Bhabna inked 99+ across both cheeks. Peya Jannatul drew an infinity sign.

#16DaysofActivism

The launch of #MyNumberMyStory is no coincidence. It aligns with the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, under UN Women's UNiTE initiative.

The campaign runs each year from 25 November to 10 December, linking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to Human Rights Day.

This year, the focus is digital violence against women and girls, one of the fastest-growing forms of abuse worldwide.

Digital violence includes online harassment, stalking, gendered disinformation, deepfakes and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, all escalating as technology evolves.

The 2025 UNiTE campaign urges governments, technology companies and communities to act, to strengthen laws, end impunity and hold platforms accountable.

It calls for sustained investment in prevention, digital literacy and survivor-centred services, alongside long-term support to women's rights organisations making digital spaces safer.

Govt's 24-hour quick response strategy

The same day the social media campaign surged, another noteworthy announcement emerged, one that deserves recognition.

Sharmeen S Murshid, adviser to the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, announced the government's preparation of a quick response strategy (QRS) to ensure action within 24 hours in cases of violence against women and children.

She explained that the strategy has been under development for eight to nine months, and the quick response team (QRT) is now at its initial implementation stage.

Why cyberbullying laws are needed

Back in March this year, activists, students and teachers across the country protested the brutal rape incidents, including that of an eight-year-old in Magura, demanding exemplary punishment for perpetrators.

During that period, conversations resurfaced about the harassment women and girls face at home and online.

TBS spoke to Supreme Court lawyer and human rights activist Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua regarding the legal steps available to victims of cyberbullying.

He explained that cyberbullying lacks a universally accepted definition due to its subjective, context-dependent nature.

Bangladesh, too, has yet to introduce a law that clearly recognises cyberbullying as a punishable offence.

He emphasised that laws must be specific and unambiguous to avoid loopholes.

"Cyber laws were not used to provide protection," he noted, "but often against those who express dissent or attempt to express their views freely."

He stressed the urgent need for a law that ensures safer cyberspace and genuine protection for users.

"Harassment of women through internet bullying or worse issues is not entailed as cyber offences in existing laws, namely the CSA," he said. Section 25 criminalises publishing false, misleading or offensive information – a broad, generalised approach that fails to capture the severity of cyberbullying's impacts.

According to Barrister Barua, these phenomena need separate recognition, which does not yet exist.

Asked whether online harassment counts as a criminal offence upon complaint, he said law enforcement addresses such cases ad hoc, following procedure based on the nature of allegations.

What gives?

Imagine a girl you know.

Now imagine she wakes up to a message from a stranger – one who perhaps knows exactly when she leaves home, what route she takes, when she's alone.

Now imagine finding your face stitched onto a stranger's body, circulated in explicit content you never consented to.

Imagine the helplessness of watching a violation spread faster than you can react.

These are not distant hypotheticals. They happen every day to millions of women and girls who dare to exist online.

Who knew the very technology shaping our lives is also being twisted into a weapon, one that finds women at home, at work, in public, and in the quiet moments they believed were theirs.

What begins as a comment can escalate into stalking, blackmail or real-world danger. The violence rarely stays on the screen. What then?

No woman should have to fear simply being present. No girl should have to calculate risk before posting on social media. The digital world should have been a safer space.

This is more than a social media protest.

Every woman who joins this campaign is not only sharing her trauma; she is asserting defiance.

She is demanding justice, calling for structural reform and laws that clearly define cyberstalking, deepfakes, non-consensual image sharing, AI-driven harassment and every form of digital violence that still lacks a name.

Because behind each number is a woman who survived what she should never have had to endure.

Safety is not a privilege, and it is not a whispered warning handed down to girls.

Now that the threat to the right to one's safety is being laid out in numbers, let me ask you: would you dare to count yours?