Protection and safety have always been at the centre of humanity. In the present century, there are several ways in which the basic safety means are not ensured and at times are exploited. This would include stalking, which is a bigger evil behaviour to fight for compared to the others.
The month of January itself is seen as the National Stalking Awareness Month. Hence, it is important to understand the specific need to eradicate this issue and educate our younger generation on the ways of stalking and the ways to cope with it. Proper and timely education principles will help in building a better foundation in terms of constructing safety in our community. The National Stalking Awareness Month itself places a need to make people move with proper insights and knowledge towards this area.
Stalking happens in several forms. It is a series of actions that would serve to threaten, make someone feel in danger, and nervous. At this current timeline, it occurs through unwanted calls, gifts, letters, and unwanted use of social media platforms, which is also quite common these days. Damaging, threats, repeated troubles, spying, interruptions into personal life, unwanted follow-ups, and other actions that put someone in control are all means of stalking. This evil behaviour has brought about a lot of harm, especially to the people of age 18 until 24 years old, and it is more focused on the students at the high school or college level. On a comparison between boys and girls, it is further understood that girls are more affected in this case than the boys. With all these, in an in-depth view, it is seen as a crime as it affects the basic social life, mental status, and stability of the people involved. It can heavily affect the students’ flow of education and can also become the reason for students to discontinue their studies. The victims also might lose their self-integrity, self-respect, and confidence within themselves. The consequences of this evil behaviour might have deleterious effects on the overall personality of the victim. This might include but not limited to depression, social dysfunction, anxiety, insomnia, and other related issues.
Stalkers might attack not just people who are previous acquaintances but would also attack strangers. Though stalking is mainly focused on the student community, it can also occur in the working-age population. This evil behaviour is continuing everywhere as there are not enough measures taken in place to stand against this behaviour. Several initiatives have taken place in some countries and the series of actions have improved than in the previous years, but since this evil behaviour is not completely eradicated and still exists in several countries, it brings sense to create adequate awareness about stalking behaviour.
At times, actions are not getting reported due to the lack of strength of the victims to bring this issue due to shame and as a matter of social stigma. But it must be seen that the only choice to fight this evil behaviour is to properly address this with the necessary steps, which the first step is to come forth with a report. This would be a great initiative to counter the stalker and keep track of the events that have been encountered. The awareness month should serve as a higher initiative project that would consist of educators, volunteers, and staff who would be in their best interest to serve as a dedicated tool to educate the public and help the victims to come out from their darker world to seek help and assistance.
The support measures would include campus and workplace support, security and police force, national centres, and governmental or non-governmental organisations that dedicated to helping the victims. To prevent further attacks from stalking, it is time to help ourselves and our community to get educated about safety tips, that would include stopping unnecessary use of social media, avoidance of strangers when needed, reporting any stalking issues to friends, parents, and guardians who could take a step forward to investigate and act on the issue. Above all, learn to protect our privacy.
It is now the time to act, keep on initiating and acting to prevent the precious lives of our community from getting pulled into the vicious circle of stalkers. Feel the need and thirst to fight the stalkers for a better and safer tomorrow. May the spirit and confidence move this awareness with might!
By Jibin Chacko
University of the Visayas- Gullas College Of Medicine
ASTRA, AMSA PHILIPPINES