Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Human Rights & Science (JMSHRS)

Volume 5, Issue 2, April 2023 | SDGs: 3 | 4 | 16 | #RethinkProcess

ORIGINAL SOURCE ON: https://knowmadinstitut.org/journal/

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7851521

Cyberbullying is a type of violence through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that has become more prevalent in the last decade in Mexico due to the rapid socialization of technologies, the increase in cell phone users, and massive access to the Internet. The results of the Module on Cyberbullying, MOCIBA, an experimental module within a more extensive survey, have shown that this is a growing problem that affects different sectors of the population, particularly women and girls. The purpose of this article is to make visible the increase in cyber-aggressions of a sexual nature sustained over time towards female respondents; for this purpose, a review of the MOCIBA in its different editions was carried out.

Keywords: Cyberbullying, Digital Violence, Gender, ICT, INEGI, Cybersecurity, SDGs, SDG 4, Mexico.

El ciberacoso es un tipo de violencia por medio de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación, TIC, que ha tomado una mayor presencia en la última década en México debido a la rápida socialización de las tecnologías, el aumento de los usuarios de teléfonos celulares y el acceso masivo a internet. Los resultados del Módulo sobre Ciberacoso, MOCIBA, un módulo experimental dentro de una encuesta mayor, han demostrado que este es un problema en ascenso que afecta a diferentes sectores de la población, en particular mujeres y niñas. El propósito de este artículo es visibilizar el aumento de las ciberagresiones de tipo sexual sostenidas en el tiempo hacia las encuestadas de sexo femenino, para ello se realizó una revisión del MOCIBA en sus diferentes ediciones.

Palabras Clave: Ciberacoso, Violencia Digital, Género, TIC, INEGI, Ciberseguridad, ODS, ODS 4, México.

hanges derived from technological advances have not only brought humanity benefits and practical technical innovations to improve people's lives and make some tasks easier but also undesired consequences derived from the use of these technologies and, therefore, concepts to define these new dynamics. In this sense, one of the problems currently affecting the Mexican population is cyberbullying, a broad and complex phenomenon that does not distinguish gender, age, level of study, or activity in particular and can be perpetrated by an individual or group that anonymously or directly employs ICTs intending to harm, annoying and inconvenience other users (Riquelme & Fuentes, 2019).

Cyberbullying as an object of study in Mexico is recent, and at least until a decade ago, research was scarce. However, most of the studies in Spanish that analyzed the Mexican case are quantitative and followed objectives such as measuring prevalence, identifying the methods of harassment, and pointing out the relationship of this phenomenon with traditional bullying at different levels of study (Del Río et al., 2009; García et al., 2011; García et al., 2012; Vega et al., 2013; Velázquez, 2013). This situation changed between 2014 and 2015 when different papers were published that explored new methodologies without leaving out surveys and focused on the characterization of the actors involved in cyberbullying dynamics at the middle and higher levels of study (Aquino, 2014; Morales & Serrano, 2014; Prieto et al., 2015; Retana & Sánchez, 2015; Serrano & Serrano, 2014; Valdés et al., 2014). Also in 2015, the first results of the Module on Cyberbullying were published, an experimental resource, since it was the first time it was used to corroborate the presence and prevalence of the phenomenon in Mexico, included within a national survey conducted by the National Institute of Geography and Informatics, INEGI.

To date, MOCIBA has six editions whose objectives range from identifying and defining the problem to making visible the different modalities of harassment and aggression through ICTs experienced by Mexican users in a period defined in each survey, which generally covers twelve months prior to the application of the survey; This information is helpful to know how cyberbullying impacts the different areas of socialization of users and their daily activities because sometimes schoolmates, workmates or family members are the perpetrators of the aggressions.

The term cyberbullying has also been used to identify one of the forms of violence against women in the digital context since the late 1990s. Marcela Lagarde (1998, cited in Vargas et al., 2014) defined gender violence as a particular form of violence that, in turn, includes others, such as psychological, economic, physical, or sexual violence, which is exercised to the detriment of the victims because they are women. In this sense, cyberstalking is one of the modalities of gender-based digital violence because it can affect and jeopardize the rights and property of a victim who has suffered some harm derived from the commission of a crime in the digital context or by making use of ICTs.

Thus, the seriousness of digital gender violence in Mexico lies in reproducing discriminatory, violent, and misogynist practices that transcend the physical space and are inserted into cyberspace, where they are legitimized and normalized (CDHCM, 2021).

In the context of the socialization of ICTs, the negative repercussions of this phenomenon resulted in the prolongation of various forms of violence in the digital environment, so modalities such as bullying, stalking, and extortion found a new space in which to continue with the aggressions, primarily encouraged by the anonymity that offers the aggressor the feeling that he will not be punished or that it is unlikely that his identity will be known (Miró, 2012).

Finally, the analysis of the modules also seeks to understand the emergence of legal measures such as the Olimpia Law, which is not strictly a law but a series of reforms to the Federal Criminal Code and the General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence, and which since 2018 entered into force in the states of Yucatán, Puebla and Nuevo León, until achieving its application in all 31 federal entities of Mexico in 2022. These reforms with a gender perspective contemplate the concepts of digital violence and media violence in Mexican legislation to recognize and punish crimes perpetrated using ICTs that violate intimacy and sexual privacy and cause psychological, economic, or emotional harm to the victim (Secretaría de las Mujeres et al., 2021).

Since 2001, INEGI has conducted different surveys and modules to obtain information about the availability and use of ICTs in Mexican households. This instrument has helped identify the areas (home, public place, school, or work) where technologies such as the internet, computer equipment, and smartphones have been socialized in Mexico and the profiles of the users that contemplate age ranges, level of schooling, and primary jobs. During Felipe Calderón's six-year term, internet users doubled from 18 million in 2006 to more than 40 million at the end of the six-year term; as for cell phones, data began to be registered in 2009, and by 2012 there were already more than 60 million users approximately (INEGI, 2013). The increase in ICT users in the country can be linked to the different government projects designed to reduce the digital divide that affects underdeveloped countries, a concern that is present in the different works of INEGI that incorporated new goals related to how people appropriate ICTs and how they make use of them.

Between 2012 and 2018, users increased to 74 million, and these figures have continued growing yearly. However, with a more significant number of people using ICTs and having access to the internet on devices such as computers and cell phones, dynamics not contemplated, and misuses of technologies began to be evident, which is why from 2015, the National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technologies in Households is raised, (ENDUTIH) within which the MOCIBA is included, which in particular seeks to know and analyze the prevalence of the phenomenon of cyberbullying in Mexico, the modalities of aggression, the actions taken by the victims, the identities of the aggressors and the level of study of the victims, among others.

According to the methodological note of the first module of 2015, INEGI indicates that different theoretical works were taken into consideration, such as those of Peter Smith, one of the first researchers to address the problem of cyberbullying in the world, and quantitative works that sought to know the prevalence of the phenomenon in Latin America and Mexico by applying surveys, such as the previously mentioned works of Vega et al., (2013) and Prieto et al., (2015), as well as a graduate thesis conducted at the National Autonomous University of Mexico to verify the existence of cyberbullying among high school students by applying a questionnaire.

Regarding the design of a module that would be part of a national survey, examples were taken from the National Crime Victimization Survey of the United States, which includes a special supplement that is the Supplemental Victimization Survey (SVS), where different forms of harassment were measured, ranging from unwanted phone calls to offensive emails, cyberstalking, harassment and rumor spreading and the Network for Surviving Stalking, from the United Kingdom, through the Electronic Communication Harassment Observation, known as ECHO Survey, a survey through a website to collect information about how the population is harassed and the effects of this on their daily lives (INEGI, 2016a).

The structure of the questionnaire applied has been modified with each of the editions of the module so that in the 2015 and 2016 results, some topics, such as the age of the victims, are not comparable with the most recent editions, where there is greater diversity in age ranges and users over sixty years old are contemplated; something similar happens in the case of situations experienced and actions taken, given that each year new reagents are included to give a more detailed picture. However, analyzing the first editions is vital to observe the changes in the respondents' answers and to identify the transformations in the practices that take place in cyberspace and that are possible thanks to the connection of socio-technical devices that allow users to communicate, search for information and access content for leisure.

The MOCIBA was composed 2015 of 10 multiple choice questions in which the selected persons were asked if they knew what cyberbullying is or even if they had heard of the phenomenon, a situation that changed between 2016 and 2020 when the questionnaire consisted of 12 more questions aimed at knowing the frequency of aggressions, the effects on victims and how to support them, as for the last edition of 2021 the questionnaire was expanded to 14 questions where issues related to the care of the information shared online. The perception about the information and data protection measures were included; each questionnaire edition includes a comments section.

As for its application, this is carried out within the ENDUTIH survey. Thus, once the ENDUTIH interview is completed, two selection criteria are taken into account: the first is that the respondent must be 12 years old or older, and the second, that the respondent has responded positively to questions 7 and 8 of the national survey, which deal with the use of internet and cell phone three months prior to the survey, in case of meeting the criteria the questionnaire on cyberbullying is applied in the home, the method of data collection is the face-to-face interview with a mobile device where the questionnaire is applied in cases where the respondent claims to have suffered cyberbullying (INEGI, 2021a).

Regarding the sample, in all editions, the design has been probabilistic, multistage, stratified, and by clusters, and the sample size has been modified each year. Thus, between 2015 and 2017, when the module was still considered experimental, no indicators were presented about the number of dwellings where the MOCIBA was applied, and only data on the number of dwellings surveyed in the ENDUTIH are offered, data that correspond for 2015 to 90,024 dwellings (INEGI, 2016a), 2016 with 134,000 (INEGI, 2019a) and in 2017, 67,000 (INEGI, 2019b). As of 2019, the module was incorporated into the National System of Statistical and Geographic Information (SNIEG), which gave it the status of a regular project; with this change, it is possible to know the number of dwellings where the MOCIBA was successfully applied, that is, where the questionnaire was completed, and the surveyors reported no inconveniences. In this sense, in 2019, the sample of the ENDUTIH was 24,000 dwellings, of which 13,196, equivalent to 54.98%, completed the MOCIBA (INEGI, 2020a), in 2020, the sample of the national survey was 65,190 dwellings of which 37,275 or 57. 18% completed the module (INEGI, 2021a); finally, in 2021, the sample of the ENDUTIH was 65,179 dwellings, and 39,910, equivalent to 62%, covered the questionnaire on cyberbullying (INEGI, 2022a).

Regarding the objectives of MOCIBA, these were also modified each year, so that in 2015 the module sought to make a first approximation to the phenomenon to know the number of people who experienced some situation of cyberbullying. While in 2016, the general objective was to know the prevalence of the phenomenon among the population aged 12 and over and to collect information to continue studying the problem, this objective is similar to that of 2017; the difference lies in the fact that in this edition the questionnaire is limited to the 12 months prior to the survey. From 2019, the objectives were homogenized, and the purpose of the module is to generate statistical data to know the prevalence of cyberbullying in internet users aged 12 years and older who, in the 12 months prior to the survey, have experienced some situation of cyberbullying, and to generate information related to the identity and sex of the aggressor, frequency of aggressions and consequences experienced by the victims.

According to data from the last population census of 2020, the current population in Mexico amounts to more than 126 million people (INEGI, 2023), of which 104.2 million are 12 years old or older and 77.9% equivalent to 81. 2 million used the internet on different devices such as cell phones, computers or tablets in the three months prior to the survey of the last edition of the MOCIBA of 2021, of this total, 42.3 million are women. Of them, 9.7 million were victims of cyberbullying that year (INEGI, 2022b). It should be noted that the populations that suffer most from cyberbullying in Mexico are girls and women between the ages of 12 and 29, a situation that has been observed with the increase in the dynamics of electronic aggression towards girls and adolescents at the basic level of studies, which includes primary and secondary level, as can be seen in Figure 1 with the compilation of the modules between 2019 and 2021.

Source: Prepared by the authors with information from INEGI (2020b; 2021b, 2022b).

According to the data in Figure 1, in 2019, the highest percentages of harassment were presented in the population ranges of 12 to 19 years and 20 to 29 years, a situation that has decreased in the last two years; this may be due to greater assimilation of the characteristics of cyberbullying among the younger population because the phenomenon has been made visible in the media through journalistic notes and investigations, This is related to the actions taken by victims and non-victims to defend themselves, which may be related to more remarkable skill in technical operations ranging from spam blocking to cyber activism. In this sense, with the Olimpia Law, digital violence was incorporated into Mexican law as a new area where people can be violated so that this modality of violence is prosecuted and punished.

It should be noted that cyberbullying is contemplated as one of the different manifestations of digital violence, in addition to the non-consensual dissemination and production of intimate material and sexual harassment in social networks (SEMUJERES et al., 2021).

In addition, between 2016 and 2021, there has been an increase in academic works that investigate the prevalence of cyberbullying in schools in different Mexican entities, intending to make cyber aggressions and the risks associated with them visible, as well as the impact of the phenomenon in the school environment (De Agüero, 2020; Gómez, 2021; Ortega and González, 2016; Prieto and Carrillo, 2016; Pávez and García-Bejár, 2020; Riquelme and Fuentes, 2019; Velázquez and Reyes, 2020). On the other hand, there are state programs, such as the National School Coexistence Program of the Ministry of Public Education, focused on giving recommendations to students to eradicate cyberbullying and which is based on the postulates of the Montevideo Memorandum that promote governmental actions to inform and educate on the correct use of ICTs and the Internet. Finally, it is essential to mention the campaigns led by civil society actors to learn about the scope of the problem, for example, the campaign Libres en línea of the feminist collective "Luchadoras MX," which has been in place since 2018, and "Cuídame al navegar" of the Regional Coalition against Trafficking of Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean (CATWLAC).

However, between 2020 and 2021, manifestations of violence towards women in other age ranges, ranging from 30 to over sixty years old, have also seen a worrying increase, which may be related to cyber aggressions such as threats, publication of intimate content and personal information, manifestations of gender-based digital violence that may be accompanied by other types of aggressions such as extortion and damage to the victim's assets, in addition to the most common objectives of cyberbullying which are to humiliate, expose and annoy other users. To this, we must add that according to research by Miró (2012) on cybercrime, cyberbullying modalities such as cyberstalking tend to victimize a more significant number of women and be carried out by middle-aged men who watch, stalk, and harass to build a romantic link and annoying the victims by taking advantage of their computer skills.

In this sense, in the first edition of MOCIBA in 2015, the options with the highest percentage chosen by female victims were receiving spam or viruses, multimedia content, and calls in general (INEGI, 2016b). This situation changed only one year later, since from 2016 onwards, a drastic shift towards sexual aggression was observed, such as receiving aggressive content, messages, and calls with this dye (INEGI, 2019c). In 2019, victims referred to new forms of cyberbullying, such as sexual advances or propositions. For women, it accounted for 40.3% of aggressions, while for men, it was 16.3% of receiving sexual content and publishing personal information (INEGI, 2020b). The changes in the forms of cyberbullying experienced by victims can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2. cyberbullying situations experienced by women aged 12 years and older in the period 2019-2021.

Sexual aggression using ICTs can be categorized as digital violence. However, these occur only once or sporadically, which does not necessarily correspond to the characteristics of cyberbullying, which is a form of repeated and ongoing violence. Nevertheless, MOCIBA offers results by frequency of aggressions that, in the case of women, correspond to criticisms based on appearance or social class, offensive calls, and contact with false identities as the most recurrent. At the same time, those of a sexual nature reach lower percentages. However, they occur in different variants, i.e., as offensive messages, receipt of sexual content, and sexual advances or proposals that victims identified with a frequency of many times and sometimes (INEGI, 2021b).

For its part, impersonation, which has ranged between 15 and 17% of aggressions in the last three years, is a modality of cyberbullying that, although it appears independently, can be related to other forms of violence, particularly crimes against sexual intimacy, since one of the reasons why it is difficult to remove content that has been obtained based on coercion or threats, is because the aggressors create accounts and profiles in the name of the victims, either to profit from the sale of data packs or packages containing photographs with sexual content or for revenge after a failed relationship, another purpose of impersonation is to damage the reputation of the victim and make her look bad with her friends and contacts (Morales & Serrano, 2014).

Regarding the aggressors, from 2015 to the 2021 edition, the victims have referred that they have an anonymous identity, which corresponds to the characteristics of cyberbullying as a form of violence that can be exercised individually or in groups because anonymity provides the aggressors with a sense of security of not being caught or punished (Miró, 2012), to this should be added the fact that in situations of violence through ICTs it is possible mobility in the roles played in each aggression dynamic, so it is easy for a victim to become a victimizer by responding to malicious provocations, or for members of the audience with an active role in sharing or reporting aggressions to become aggressors or victims respectively, among other possibilities such as the aggressor being a victim of his actions (Garaigordobil, 2011).

In this sense, other INEGI surveys can help to delineate the profiles of aggressors and the areas where they contact and investigate victims, for example, the National Survey on the Dynamics of Household Relationships, ENDIREH, where the areas of interaction correspond to the community, family, work, school and, more recently, the digital field. Thus, among the aggressors whose identity is known to the victim are co-workers and schoolmates, while in the home, it is siblings, fathers, and mothers who perpetrate psychological violence; as for sexual aggressions, these are carried out by uncles and cousins; finally, in the community sphere, the aggressors are mostly strangers and perpetrate or have perpetrated sexual violence in the last 12 months. Regarding violence through ICTs in the digital sphere, at least 13% of the respondents answered that they had been insulted on some occasions and had sexual insinuations and comments made to them through social networks such as Facebook and applications such as WhatsApp. Of this total, sexual aggressions were concentrated in school and community settings for victims between 15 and 24 years old (INEGI, 2022b).

Source: own elaboration with data from INEGI (2016b, 2019c, 2019d; 2020b; 2021b; 2022b).

As shown in Figure 3, there is a notable change between the results of the 2015 module and subsequent editions; this may be related to the diversification of the modalities of cyberbullying at the basic level of studies and in other areas of development of Mexican women. Moreover, is that according to Miró (2012) and Wright (2017), in manifestations such as cyberbullying and cyber trolling, the aggressor may intend to be noticed, acquire power and humiliate the victim without remaining anonymous so that, although the attacks are not face-to-face, the aggressor seeks to be recognized for his actions. In contrast, in modalities such as cyber grooming, the aggressor tries to keep his identity hidden while gaining the trust of the victim he has selected; in these cases, the aggressor may even deceive the minor with a false identity, posing as a younger person so as not to arouse suspicion. Thus, the multiple ways violence is presented using ICTs generate scenarios where anonymity, impersonation, and direct aggressions occur. In this sense, Figure 3 shows that more than 50% of the victims do not know their aggressor, but a percentage of more than 40% can identify the perpetrator, and in these cases, the so-called acquaintance, friend of a friend, and classmate or workmate are the main ones.

The phenomenon of gender-based violence is often linked to the dominant gender relations of a given society, which is why in the different editions of the module, the results indicate a progression of digital gender-based violence in the aggressions reported by the victims, since, as they interact, use and socialize through ICTs, other users in their immediate environments, the more they interact, use and socialize with other users in their immediate environments, the more they are affected, other users in their immediate environments, such as school, work or family, with access to technologies use them to intimidate, attack and violate women and thus reproduce gender-based violence rooted in aggressions such as sexual proposals, sending unwanted multimedia material, intimidating calls, and cyber threats.

Regarding the actions taken by women to reverse the dynamic of cyberbullying from 2015 to 2017, the data presented in the executive reports do not provide the percentages by sex. However, the responses are similar in the three editions, except in 2017, which merges the response: ignore the situation with not answering in addition to the response: delete the publication or message is included. From 2019, it is possible to identify the actions of girls and women when faced with cyberbullying, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Percentage of female population that suffered cyberbullying according to actions taken 2019-2021

Source: Prepared by the authors with information from INEGI (2020b, 2021b, 2022b).

La acción más recurrida por las víctimas de ciberacoso es bloquear a la persona ciberacosadora, así como cuentas o páginas relacionadas, práctica que se mantiene en ascenso hasta alcanzar un 71.5% en 2021 y que implica un conocimiento técnico con respecto a la administración de cuentas en redes sociales o servicios de internet. En cuanto a la segunda opción, que es ignorar o no contestar, es interesante la gradual disminución de esta respuesta en hasta diez puntos porcentuales que se han distribuido en otras acciones, incluso tres nuevas como publicar la situación en redes sociales y denunciar en el contexto de donde provienen las agresiones como la escuela y el trabajo, con estas modificaciones en las respuestas también se observa un aumento en los porcentajes que refieren el levantamiento de denuncias ante el ministerio público o policía en tres puntos porcentuales, aunque este porcentaje aún es bajo y prueba de ello son otros estudios que indican que las denuncias no tienen el seguimiento adecuado.

En México es también el INEGI el organismo que recaba la información estadística con respecto a la denuncia de delitos cometidos y percepción social de la violencia. En este sentido, es mediante la Encuesta Nacional de Victimización y Percepción sobre la Seguridad Pública, ENVIPE en adelante, que se puede establecer un acercamiento a estas cifras. Esta encuesta se levanta desde 2011 y entre los principales resultados destaca el apartado denominado Cifra negra, que corresponde a los delitos que se presumen no denunciados y que no cuentan con carpetas de investigación. De acuerdo con los datos de la edición 2022 en México 93.2% de los delitos no son denunciados y por ende no se inició una carpeta de investigación en las fiscalías estatales (INEGI, 2022c).

Otro aspecto para destacar es la incidencia delictiva, es decir los tipos de delitos y las variantes que contemplan, ya que también se observa una dinámica general en la recopilación de datos. Por ejemplo, dos de los delitos más denunciados en México son la extorsión y el fraude, aunque no se proporcionan los indicadores necesarios para conocer con datos oficiales que porcentaje corresponde a extorsión y fraude cara a cara, telefónico o mediante alguna plataforma o aplicación electrónica. En cuanto a las agresiones sexuales, estas no aparecen de forma independiente en la incidencia delictiva de la ENVIPE, es hasta la edición 2020 cuando se desagregan los indicadores por el sexo de la víctima y se englobaron en el tópico Otros delitos que implican el hostigamiento o la intimidación sexual, exhibicionismo, manoseo, intento de violación y violación sexual (INEGI, 2020c), pero no se especifica si alguno de estos delitos fue perpetrado haciendo uso de las TIC. Esto es importante porque, igual que como sucede con la ENDIREH donde a penas en 2022 se incorporó el ciberespacio como uno de los ámbitos donde las mujeres mexicanas se desarrollan, es necesario que dentro de la ENVIPE se establezcan datos representativos con respecto a las denuncias de delitos que suceden en el mundo digital.

Sin embargo, existen cifras recabadas por el colectivo Luchadoras MX hasta el 2020 que son de utilidad para conocer los porcentajes de denuncias y carpetas de investigación en 24 de los 31 estados de la república, que hasta ese momento contarán con legislación actualizada en materia de violencia digital. Hay que señalar que la única manera de conocer estos datos es por medio de solicitudes de acceso a la información pública, Luchadoras MX realizó estas solicitudes a las fiscalías estatales para conocer el número de denuncias y carpetas, así como su estado, el género del denunciante, las plataformas utilizadas para la agresión, los delitos denunciados y el número de carpetas concluidas, pero no todas las solicitudes fueron resueltas. Así, los datos disponibles con respecto a denuncias hasta el 2020 son los siguientes: entre 2018 y 2020 se iniciaron 2,143 carpetas de investigación en el país distribuidas en 18 estados, estas carpetas se abrieron por delito de difusión de imágenes íntimas sin consentimiento, en más del 80% de estas las víctimas son mujeres (Aguirre et. al, 2020).

The action most resorted to by victims of cyberbullying is to block the cyberbullying person, as well as related accounts or pages, a practice that continues to rise to 71.5% in 2021 and implies technical knowledge regarding the administration of accounts in social networks or the internet services. As for the second option, which is to ignore or not answer, it is interesting the gradual decrease of this response by up to ten percentage points that have been distributed in other actions, including three new ones such as publishing the situation on social networks and reporting in the context where the aggressions come from such as school and work, with these changes in the responses, there is also an increase in the percentages that refer to filing complaints with the public prosecutor or police by three percentage points, although this percentage is still low and proof of this are other studies that indicate that the complaints are not adequately followed up.

In Mexico, INEGI is also the agency that collects statistical information regarding reporting crimes committed and social perception of violence. From now on, an approach to these figures can be established through the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Safety, ENVIPE. This survey has been conducted since 2011, and among the main results is the section called Black Figure, which corresponds to crimes that are presumably not reported and do not have investigation files. According to data from the 2022 edition, 93.2% of crimes in Mexico are not reported, and therefore no investigation file was initiated in the state prosecutors' offices (INEGI, 2022c).

Another aspect to highlight is the incidence of crime, i.e., the types of crimes and the variants they contemplate, since a general dynamic is also observed in data collection. For example, two of the most reported crimes in Mexico are extortion and fraud. However, the necessary indicators are not provided to know with official data what percentage corresponds to extortion and fraud face-to-face, by telephone, or through some electronic platform or application. As for sexual assaults, these do not appear independently in the ENVIPE crime incidence, it is until the 2020 edition that the indicators were disaggregated by the sex of the victim and were encompassed in the topic Other crimes involving sexual harassment or intimidation, exhibitionism, groping, attempted rape and rape (INEGI, 2020c), but it is not specified whether any of these crimes were perpetrated using ICTs. This is important because, as in the case of the ENDIREH, where cyberspace was only incorporated in 2022 as one of the areas where Mexican women develop, the ENVIPE must establish representative data regarding the reports of crimes that occur in the digital world.

However, figures collected by the collective Luchadoras MX until 2020 are helpful to know the percentages of complaints and investigation files in 24 of the 31 states of the republic, which until that time will have updated legislation on digital violence. It should be noted that the only way to know this data is through requests for access to public information; Luchadoras MX made these requests to state prosecutors to know the number of complaints and folders, as well as their status, the gender of the complainant, the platforms used for the aggression, the crimes reported and the number of concluded folders, but not all requests were resolved. Thus, the available data regarding complaints up to 2020 are as follows: Between 2018 and 2020, 2,143 investigation folders were initiated in the country and distributed in 18 states; these folders were opened for the crime of dissemination of intimate images without consent, in more than 80% of these the victims are women (Aguirre et al., 2020).

According to the report, only 17% of the files were likely to be resolved through legal channels, and there was only one conviction for sexting in the state of Chihuahua and three in Tamaulipas, of which only one resulted in deprivation of liberty (2020, p. 45 and 46). Also, through a request for access to information to the Attorney General's Office of Mexico City (FGJCDMX), the Mexican newspaper Milenio Diario obtained data indicating that until 2021 in Mexico City, 434 investigation files had been initiated for crimes against sexual intimacy, but only 23 male persons were arrested. However, whether they were punished is unknown (Ríos, 2021).

On the other hand, the numbers for 2022 are not encouraging since, according to updated data from Luchadoras MX, it is a fact that digital violence affects women more, which is verifiable in the number of complaints filed. However, only 0.53% of the cases reach the judges to take the next step in a criminal procedure (Internet Feminista, 2022). At the same time, the numbers of the Olimpia Law indicate that, as of August 2022, 10 aggressors had been sanctioned in 7 states of the republic through this regulation (Sandoval, 2022).

Finally, in 2021, 2.6% of respondents indicated that when faced with a situation of cyberbullying, they do not take any action, so they do not report the aggression or block or close communication channels with the aggressor(s), which positions them in a situation of greater vulnerability and becomes an easy target for new attacks by malicious users (INEGI, 2022b).

The results of MOCIBA over seven years show that violence against Mexican women and girls can manifest itself in different areas where they develop, such as the family, school, work, and recently the digital, where aggressions have seen an increase since 2016, particularly those related to sexual violence ranging from threats and extortion attempts to the production, dissemination, storage of multimedia material not consented or not requested by the victim, which aims to harm, denigrate, humiliate or coerce another person. This does not mean that before that date, there were no aggressions of this type, but rather that no instrument was available to determine the magnitude of the problem in the country.

It should be noted that INEGI has other surveys, such as the ENDIREH that delve into the different dimensions and forms that violence against women in Mexico takes in the labor, community, and school fields, contributing to further delineate the complex panorama that women live in this country.

Although, with the incorporation of digital violence into the Federal Criminal Code and the General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence, the repercussions and risks associated with cyber-violence have become visible, and even the first sanctions for cyber-aggressors are beginning to appear, the truth is that these are still few in comparison with the percentages reported by the module, This may be related to the difficulties that victims face when they want to report crimes, to this we must add that state prosecutors must be prepared in gender issues and updated in terms of amendments to Mexican laws, this so that the complaints derive in investigation files and finally are resolved favorably.

Finally, it is necessary to make known the different forms that violence can take through ICTs so that they can be identified by the victims and the people around them, but above all, the alternatives and recommended actions in case of suffering it.

*Leticia Fuentes Vera, Maestra en Ciencias en Metodología de la Ciencia, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Iztapalapa, Profesora de asignatura en la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4406-9670 E-mail: [email protected]