European Central: Dangers Of Online Dating In Serbia
Iryna Veklich
Online dating has risen in popularity for people looking for love who have not had luck outside the digital sphere. Kiss.com, the first modern dating platform was launched in 1994 while other popular platforms such as Badoo and Tinder were developed later. The latter two have become the two most popular dating platforms in Serbia. While popular, online dating comes with risks, particularly for women. A recent study in Serbia has discussed some of those dangers. It is important to realize that while this recent research is specific to Serbia, women face violence everywhere. In general, there needs to be a way to make online dating safer worldwide. People may be quick to say that women in Serbia and Europe, in general, can simply look to meet potential dates the traditional way rather than online. They possibly already tried this already which is why they have chosen to turn to dating apps in the first place. This is exactly what a rural respondent in the research indicated. The dating world has evolved and if people want to date, they have no choice but to change their methods of finding love.
The report shows that a quarter of women who participated in the study were victims of bullying, harassment, or sexual harassment. 40 percent of women also talked with someone who was impersonating someone else. A quarter of the participants were recipients of hate speech. Sadly enough, 90 percent of women in the study would not feel comfortable sharing what happened to them when attempting to date online. This appears to be rooted in shame and embarrassment.
Unfortunately, Tinder refused to properly discuss violence against women with the researchers, which is part of the problem. When questioned if it has data about women using the app in Serbia or worldwide the company claimed it did not. It had the same response for the number of complaints the company has received from women using the dating platform in Serbia. While users ultimately decide to take a risk when they meet up with another app user in real life, Tinder can still at least attempt to make the app safer. The company has taken some steps but they were mainly only available in the United States before last year. The app is available in over 190 countries yet safety options like a panic button or photo verification were not originally available in all of these nations Tinder’s own community guidelines state that “your offline behavior can lead to termination of your Tinder account.”, yet this is rarely the case. One of the few examples of someone having their account terminated is Simon Leviev, an Israeli man who defrauded women out of money. He accomplished this by pretending to be in danger after building a rapport with women on the app who felt it necessary to give him the money in order to save his life. He swindled women from various European countries out of ten million dollars before finally being caught. In the end, however, he avoided prison time and instead is banned from dating apps.
Looking in general at violence against women in Serbia, a woman’s home is the most dangerous place for her. 49.3 percent of Serbian women are killed by intimate partners and 68 percent of all femicides take place at home. In Serbia similar to other European nations, femicide can happen at any age. In 2018, 34 women were victims of femicide in Serbia ranging from a young girl to ten grandmothers. These women were murdered using various methods such as with a knife, physical strength, gun, ax, hunting rifle, hammer, sharp object, or a metal pole. Former state secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and now state secretary of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Biljana Popović Ivković pointed out that the number of women killed annually has remained steady since 2000. A year trend shows that the situation is not improving yet in Serbia. In the cases where the guilty party is criminally charged only ten percent receive the maximum sentence of 40 years. It is important to keep in mind that femicide always ends in the death of a female as a result of gender-based violence. Depending on someone’s personal views this can be viewed as very lax.
Serbia’s government can do more itself to protect women through legislation, yet this is difficult when it is not well-known what the country-specific problems are with Tinder. This may mean Serbia making it obligatory for Tinder to share data on harassment Serbian women face when they use the app. As this may be challenging for a smaller European nation to accomplish alone, one potential solution would be a unified approach. An example is a current push to crack down on nations agreeing to a global corporate tax minimum. This stops countries from lowering corporate taxes to unsustainably low percentages in order to attract companies to relocate their headquarters.
Until things change women in Serbia and everywhere need to do what they can to keep themselves safe. This includes sharing their current location from their phone with a friend or relative and any addresses and details they can provide for where the date will take place. It is also important that more is done to make women feel confident enough to report crimes when they do happen. If not, then the people committing crimes on dating apps are free to continue. It can be challenging for women to feel comfortable coming forward with details about abuse they faced either in the real or virtual world, yet it is necessary to break the cycle. Ideally, law enforcement in Serbia and around the globe would continue to work to make women feel that if they choose to report they will be taken seriously. Dating platforms such as Tinder and Badoo would be more proactive about taking complaints on their platforms seriously. This could potentially include examining messages sent through the app and if there are signs of harassment the offending party would be banned.
