The 16 days of activism are back! Starting with International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women
Today marks the beginning of UN Women’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), running from November 25th to December 10th. This year, Share-Net Netherlands is proud to join the global campaign: “UNiTE! Invest to Prevent Violence against Women & Girls.” This year the campaign’s focus is on the critical and growing issue of digital violence.
The fight for gender justice and equality has a long history. 2025 will mark the 30th anniversary of the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which identified 12 critical areas of concern for women globally. In the three decades since, a 13th area has emerged with alarming prevalence: digital abuse, which 58% of women worldwide report experiencing.
What isTech-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV)?
Digital abuse is any act of GVB that is committed using technology and/or the internet which can result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm or other infringements of rights and freedoms.
This violence manifests in many forms, including:
The impacts of this type of abuse, however, does not merely exist online. Often they lead to violence experienced in real life such as coercion, physical abuse, and even femicide (killing of women and girls). For example, the invention of the Meta-verse has made people fall victim to sexual assault with out any physical contact with another person. New reports have revealed women are assaulted on these virtual reality (VR) platforms, leaving them with the same PTSD and psychological scars as a traditional survivor. The harm caused by such acts can have long-lasting effects on survivors over a long period of time. While technology continues to become more entwined with daily life, digital abuse has concurrently grown and is disproportionately impacting women and girls, especially those with jobs with prominent online presences, such as journalists, social media promoters, activists, and young people generally.
Alongside UN Women, Share-net Netherlands is taking a stand against technological injustices plaguing our world. This campaign will highlight the underbelly of technology and how it both facilitates connection but is also an agent of discrimination.
Current Landscape
While governments around the world have continued to drag their feet on addressing this topic, the civil society has had to shoulder the weight of outreach, for example:
The Coalition Against Online Violence (CAOV)– Their outreach is focused on protecting one of the more vulnerable demographics from these kinds of GBV, female journalists, but their content benefits any audience. They understand this issue and technology in general is a new thing that requires training. Some resources offered that are geared to a wider public include
Most official conversations around digital violence are relatively new. Thanks to years of advocacy, 2024 was in many ways a breakthrough year for this issue. The UN Statistical Commissioner called for global research on the full extent and impact of digital GBV. The UN established the first standardized set of guidelines for online safety and AI usage known as the Global Digital Compact. Any organization can join this initiative set to hold all people accountable in creating a safe, open, and secure digital future for all. 79 governments around the world adopted the UN Cybercrime Convention– the first legally binding contract enforcing governments address digital violence at work- however, of these 79 countries, the Netherlands is not on the list.
Additionally, with the wide-spread funding cut to feminist organizations around the world, it is more important than ever for governments to take the lead. Right now, the definition of the law that describes digital crimes in the Netherlands is extremely weak. It only criminalizes the economic and business victims to online threats, and completely neglects the human realities.
What we can do!
Over the next sixteen days, we challenge you to join Share-net as we work to be part of a solution. Change is possible when we collectively raise our voices:
The broad right-wing-swing of governments around the world have left feminist advocacy organizations in a difficult position, making public support more critical than ever.
No role is ever too small. Even if you feel this is too big of a problem for you to address, the role of the individual is crucial– be the change you want to see on the internet. You are helping to create a better tomorrow by simply supporting survivors’ voices, bringing awareness, and calling out harmful norms.
See our content on Instagram: @sharenetnetherlands
Written by: Adley Zalewski
References:
https://rutgers.international/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Decoding-TFGBV-Report-2024.pdf
https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/16-days-of-activism
https://www.coe.int/en/web/cyberviolence/cyberviolence-against-women
https://onlineviolenceresponsehub.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/CAOV-MAPPING-REPORT-2024.pdf
https://unric.org/en/cyberviolence-against-women-and-girls-the-growing-threat-of-the-digital-age
https://academic.oup.com/ojls/article/45/3/554/8108104?login=false
