Women’s And Girls’ Rights At Risk – UN Report

This year’s UN report strikes a more pessimistic tone. The report released on Thursday marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration – a landmark agreement signed by 189 countries that signalled a pivotal shift in the fight for women’s and girls’ rights – and comes ahead of International Women’s Day marches this weekend.

It points to a growing backlash against women’s rights, highlighting the impacts of ongoing conflicts, poverty, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and seismic political shifts that have precipitated change – in the US President Donald Trump has restricted reproductive rights for women.

The UN data identifies newer forms of violence and abuse proliferating across the digital realm and has called for urgent action.

Across 12 countries in Europe and Central Asia, the report found that 53% of adult women online have experienced some form of technology-facilitated gender-based violence at least once.

Online violence and abuse take many forms with the most widespread being cyber stalking, cyber harassment, cyber bullying, online gender-based hate speech and non-consensual intimate image abuse, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality.

While men can be victims of cyber abuse and violence, the overwhelming evidence shows that women and girls are most vulnerable.

“There’s an upward trend in online violence against women,” said Professor Elena Martellozzo, a researcher and associate director of the Centre for Abuse and Trauma Studies at Middlesex University.

“Misogyny is growing and sadistic behaviour on behalf of boys and young men is growing online.

“AI has been a massive threat to women and girls,” she said referring to deepfake technology that can manipulate images, audio or video – making it difficult to differentiate from authentic content.

“There are apps that can undress someone; how these are even allowed to exist.”

Threats from the Manosphere
The uptick is unsurprising given the digital sphere has become a breeding ground for hate speech and given rise to the term “manosphere” – a network of misogynistic content generated by a specific group of men, mostly young, whose online influence is shaping public attitudes towards women and fuelling violence.

“It’s not a new problem blaming women for all sorts of problems in society, but now it’s much more exacerbated by the fact they’re now encouraged and have now found a way to exchange more powerful views,” Dr Devran Gulel, a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth, said of the networked spaces or “manosphere” used predominantly by disaffected young men.

She added that the common thread for users was the “weaponisation of online platforms to harass women and to plant gender misinformation and normalise misogyny under the disguise of so-called men’s issues”.

Coordinated harassment campaigns against women – especially those in public roles – doxing, deep fakes and revenge pornography, social media threats of sexual and physical violence are just some of the behaviours that take place in the manosphere.

“As women have gained rights and freedoms they’ve started claiming space and in public space and of course some men have not been happy with this because they’ve started losing their privileges,” Gulel said.

Enabling misogyny
There has been a tendency to play down the impacts of cyber abuse because it takes place in a virtual space, with users mostly being anonymous. But researchers have found that psychological harms can be devastating because algorithms that amplify misogynistic attitudes then seep into the offline world.

By promoting this type of content, the algorithms are also harming young men. The algorithmic process has resulted in what some experts describe as ‘misogynist radicalisation’ and it’s been compared to methods used to recruit individuals to terrorism.

These networks with their capacity for more serious harms enable online abusers to operate in ways that are challenging lawmakers and rights advocates alike. The UN even named the network as a threat to women’s rights.

In May last year, the EU parliament adopted the first ever rules on tackling cyber violence against women calling for stronger laws and steps to define consent with countries required to adopt national legislation by 2027. The new guidelines focus on offences including sending obscene pictures and disclosing private information.

Limits of regulation
EU lawmakers also passed the Digital Services Act, putting the onus on digital platforms in Europe to remove illegal content from their websites.

But regulation has had its limitations and predictably been met with resistance from tech giants who have always prioritised free speech.

Meta in January ended its relationship with fact-checking organisations eliminating moderators whose role included monitoring and removing abusive content. Meta’s own oversight board has raised concerns about the impact of the changes.

Since the announcement, governments and cyber safety commentators have piled pressure on Meta and other tech platforms to consider the impacts of eliminating moderators.

“Regulation is the right step, but enforcement is the issue. We need legally binding actions not just codes of conduct or guidelines,” Gulel said.

Making algorithms transparent
“We need transparency in design of algorithms, so we know that these platforms don’t profit from online misogyny.”

Martellozzo agreed, saying that without addressing the broader culture of online abuse, misogyny and pornography, these measures will only address part of the problem.

“What the legislation doesn’t do is it doesn’t tackle the problem of the proliferation of hate or widespread distribution of abuse of women. So, you can try to fix the problem by saying, ‘yes, this is illegal’ but still have a group of people willing to do these things.”

The UK is soon expected to legislate to criminalise the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes to address online violence targeting women and girls.

Martellozzo says criminalising online violence is a critical step forward particularly given the limitations and challenges of regulation but cautions against an over reliance on strategies without preventative measures.

Digital literacy
Digital literacy and education ought to be part of any approach that challenges cultural norms and addresses the broader culture of online misogyny, Martellozzo said.

“It needs to be mandated and if we start in secondary school it’s already too late,” she said. “They (children) need to be online for socialising, for learning but they also need to know how to be online respectfully. This is really missing.”

“For women and girls in particular it’s really important to help them recognise, prevent and respond to an online risk when they see it and come across it.”

Gulel acknowledged the changing political climate that has influenced the cultural landscape.

“Political figures like Erdogan, Bolsonaro and Trump use political discourse to vilify feminists and efforts in gender equality and that translates into online abuse,” she said.

Gulel is nonetheless optimistic that positive changes will be implemented. She cites a court case brought against Meta by Kenyan employees who sued for psychological harm and won after they were exposed to hours of violent content in their role as moderators.

However, tech accountability, she said, is going to be difficult.

Including men’s voices
“Now Trump is in the White House, what happens in the US has a spillover effect on the rest of the world.”

In the long-term, Gulel believes that public pressure will come to bear on authoritarian leaders who create obstacles in combating violence against women.

Financial pressure is one tool advertisers could use to distance themselves from platforms, Gulel said, while whistleblower protection could be given to insiders who expose algorithmic biases that promote abuse.

Martellozzo said it was vital to include men in conversations on how to mitigate the harms facing women.

“We need to encourage boys and men to be active allies in creating safer online spaces,” she said.

“Men have to be brought into this battle.”