Combating Online Violence Against Women and Girls
By: Lina Castellanos
Tags: Girls, Social Media, Gender, Advocacy, Online Violence

Today’s digital spaces are increasingly being used by women and girls, exposing them to more forms of online violence, including sexual harassment, stalking, bullying, zoombombing, and sex trolling, among other forms. In the digital space, girls face more violence in the form of comments about their behavior and appearance, threats of sexual violence, and are more often discouraged to speak out and have an opinion. The current COVID-19 pandemic has raised the use of the internet between 50% and 70% in a world where there is still a lack of comprehensive information and reliable data around online forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

Schools and students may have to keep relying on online learning through the public health emergency and beyond. In that case, it is important to better understand online violence against women and girls and its effects: anxiety, stress, and panic attacks are only a few derived from harmful online experiences. Since online violence is not gender-neutral, it is imperative to actively include girls in policy and program design, hear from their experiences, and take note of their recommendations.

Recognizing Girls’ Know-How

Despite increasing digital violence against girls, their voices and experiences are too often left out of the conversations around ways to prevent and combat violence against women and girls. Their meaningful participation in inclusive policy and program design is essential to finding concrete solutions.

A start to the conversation was recently presented by PLAN International and Instagram, who teamed up with a group of 15 diverse girl activists in Listening Sessions, a space where young girls will share their lived experiences on social media with Instagram’s policy and product teams. These listening sessions resulted from PLAN International’s 2020 State of the World’s Girls Report, “Freedom Online,” which revealed that girls are frequently harassed, abused, and driven from the online spaces where they often seek to feel free and empowered to express themselves.

For its report, PLAN International interviewed more than 14,000 girls from 31 countries across multiple continents, revealing key findings: More than half of the girls surveyed have been harassed and abused online and one of four girls abused online feels physically unsafe as a result. Those experiences shouldn’t be ignored. Adolescent girls are crucial stakeholders in advancing human rights for themselves and others. Their experiences and solutions should inform the actions and decisions taken by governments and the private sector.

For instance, taking a “children as experts” approach has proven to be successful in promoting inclusive participation in identifying and addressing problems of school violence and bullying in Sweden, where effective national responses to school violence and bullying have also included actively listening to children, availability of data, and a strong commitment to teaching children about their rights.

VAWG During COVID-19

The year 2020 has underlined the urgent need for prompt and inclusive responses to prevent and combat all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, including online violence. A pivotal year for advancing women’s rights (the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and the 20th anniversary of the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security), 2020 has exposed emerging challenges for responding to violence against women and girls.

The context of COVID-19 has allowed the discernment of new forms of gender-based online violence. However, when thinking about violence against women and girls, it is important that violence against women be addressed independently from violence against girls; the forms of violence and the consequences in these separate population groups deserve to be analyzed separately without overlooking their shared risk factors. According to PLAN International’s survey, the adverse effects of online harassment can lead to girls’ mental or emotional stress, lower self-esteem or loss of confidence, feelings of being physically unsafe, and can cause problems at school and problems with family and friends, among other consequences.

Online VAWG and Online Education

With many schools closed due to the ongoing pandemic, families, students, and schools will have to continue to resort to online learning mechanisms. It is imperative then to consider if digital violence against girls will interfere with their online education during the public health crisis, but also beyond into the future, since online interactions are likely to continue. Can the effects of digital violence reduce girl’s engagement and participation in distance learning? It may be too early to predict if the use of internet tools for educational purposes, in addition to the rise of online violence against girls, will have consequences such as disengagement; however, this stresses the need for sex and age disaggregated data around online violence and online education, as well as hearing from girls themselves.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has addressed information and communications technology (ICT) facilitated violence against women, recognizing how girls are affected by cyberbullying, particularly in relation to their right to education. The Committee has also acknowledged the potential that ICT and social media have to increase access to information and education. Simultaneously, the Committee has requested States to encourage the private sector to participate in the implementation of policies aimed at preventing violence against women and promoting educational programs to address abusive online content.

As Human Rights Watch reported last year, internet and social media companies usually fail to grasp the urgency and impact of online violence; they often fail to respond quickly enough, and their reporting mechanisms are practically nonexistent — something highlighted by the girls surveyed in PLAN International’s report. Governments and social media companies have the responsibility to recognize that to combat online violence against girls, efforts have to be made, starting with listening to the victims and their needs first. Acknowledging the need for girls’ contributions to policymaking and social media product’s design will be imperative to combat online violence.