Women’s rights are human rights.

Every human, irrespective of any characteristics, is born with universal rights. These rights, established in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed through numerous international conventions and national constitutions, embody the principles of dignity, equality, and freedom from discrimination. Despite these commitments, women and girls worldwide continue to face discrimination and severe human rights violations due to their gender. It is crucial to see these violations of women’s rights not as separate rights violations, but as core human rights violations of equal importance.

“All forms of violence against women are despicable. They are a violation of human rights and undermine our core values. Women across all corners of the world continue to endure unspeakable violence – physical, sexual, psychological and economic – offline and online.”

Former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission (2019-2024)

Today, these principles are critical in addressing a new frontier in women’s rights violation: cyberviolence. As technology opens up spaces for empowerment, inclusion, and participation, it also mirrors existing systemic inequalities and even perpetuates new forms of abuse, threatening individual’s safety, dignity, and freedom in today’s increasingly digital world.

On International Human Rights Day, we must ensure that the fight against violence against women extends to the cyber realm, upholding the universal right to security and freedom from harm.

What is Cyberviolence Against Women?

Cyberviolence against women is a broad term and there is not one universally agreed-upon definition.[1] However, it often is referred to as technology-facilitated acts of violence against women. This means it encompasses any act of gender-based violence that is committed through and within information and communications technology (e.g., phones, social media platforms, other electronic devices etc.).

While anyone can be subjected to cyberviolence, it disproportionately affects women, particularly those in the public eye (e.g., journalists, politicians, or human rights defenders) and women who face intersecting forms of discrimination (e.g., racism, ableism).

Forms of cyberviolence against women are seen to include:

• Online harassment, hate speech and cyberbullying: Often involving threats of physical abuse, rape, or murder.
• Doxing: The public dissemination of private information (e.g., home addresses) online, intended to endanger the victim.
• Image-based sexual abuse: This includes the non-consensual distribution of sexually explicit imagery with newer forms like deepfakes. Regarding the latter, artificial intelligence (AI) is used to create fake, yet realistic seeming, sexually explicit content featuring the victim's face.
• Cyberstalking: The use of apps or devices to track or spy on an individual.

Accordingly, cyberviolence against women includes hateful comments on social media, but also extends to the usage of technology and digital devices to harm and control women. Comprehensive data on the phenomenon is still scarce. When included in surveys, it is often only partially addressed or conflated with general gender-based violence.[2]

Cyberviolence against women is just as real as offline violence. In fact, violence in analogue spaces often continues online, and vice versa, with both forms of violence being deeply intertwined and reinforcing each other. Perpetrators may be known to the victim – such as (ex)partners, colleagues, or fellow students – or entirely anonymous and faceless.

A significant challenge lies in the fast-paced, ever-evolving, and borderless nature of the internet and modern technology. For example, once content is uploaded, it can reach millions of people and removing it becomes particularly difficult. Additionally, many people are unaware of the capabilities of new technologies and devices used for surveillance and tracking, which exacerbates their vulnerability.

Consequences are multifaceted, and include the offline physical and sexual abuse of victims, their psychological trauma, social isolation, and economic harm. As a result, many women experiencing cyberviolence reconsider if and what they share online. They withdraw from online spaces, resulting in the silencing of women’s voices in the digital age.

Action to address Cyberviolence Against Women by the European Union (EU)

While civil society organisations have been at the forefront of pushing this topic onto the political agenda, policies on the EU level as well as in Member States are beginning to address the issue. Meanwhile, service providers such as social media platforms share responsibility and need to engage in discussions on how to tackle cyberviolence against women.

At the national level, there is a growing governmental recognition in EU Member States of the need for targeted measures to combat cyberviolence. However, legal frameworks and policies still vary considerably between Member States, and a specific focus on a gender-based perspective on cyberviolence is rare.

At the EU level, two key developments are particularly noteworthy:

1. Adoption of the Digital Services Act in 2022:

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) regulates online intermediaries and platforms (e.g., marketplaces, social networks, content-sharing platforms). Its main goal is to prevent illegal and harmful activities online (e.g., non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit or manipulated material) and to establish mechanisms to report such activities. It protects user’s safety and their fundamental rights. Accordingly, it provides a basis to fight cyberviolence against women.

DSA obligations for providers have gone into effect in February 2024.

2. Adoption of the EU Directive 2024/1385 on combating violence against women and domestic violence in 2024:

An EU Directive is a legislative act that sets out a goal that all EU countries must achieve. The individual countries can devise their own laws, but have to reach the set goal.

This specific Directive 2024/1385 is the first piece of EU legislation comprehensively addressing cyberviolence against women.

• The Directive acknowledges that cyberviolence disproportionately affects women, results in their silencing and curtails their societal participation.
• The Directive contains strong provisions to fight cyberviolence, such as criminalising its most prevalent forms, i.e., non-consensual sharing of intimate material, deepfakes, cyberstalking, cyber incitement to violence and hatred, as well as cyber harassment, such as cyberflashing and doxing.
• The Directive builds on the DSA and contains specific provisions for service providers such as online platforms, e.g., to remove certain online material.
• Furthermore, it obliges Member States to have in place specialist support services, and to establish preventative measures to enable users to identify, seek support and prevent cyberviolence.
• At the same time, the EU is also developing initiatives with platforms to already make the Directive a reality in the online space.

The EU is increasingly raising awareness on cyberviolence against women and is making significant strides in addressing it through comprehensive legislation, ensuring women’s safety, dignity, and participation in digital spaces and beyond.

[1] An overview of international and national definitions can be found in the 2022 European Institute for Gender Equality report called “Combating Cyber Violence against Women and Girls”. The Council of Europe also provides a comprehensive overview on the issue.

[2] An early EU Fundamental Rights Survey on Violence against Women (2014) showed that 20% of young women in the EU had experienced some form of cyber sexual harassment. Another often-cited survey by Amnesty International (2017) showed 46% of women who had experienced online abuse or harassment said it was misogynistic or sexist in nature.