Silhouettes placed by mothers, relatives of missing persons and victims of femicide, feminist collectives, and various organizations are seen while they protest in various streets of Mexico City, Mexico, on November 25, 2024, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which aims to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls around the world. (Photo credit: Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
November 25 marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a U.N. day designated to focus on the issue of violence against women and girls and to call for more and more effective action to combat it. Over time, the day has evolved into a global, widespread initiative that now incorporates 16 Days of Activism and the UNiTE campaigns. The 2025 theme for this U.N. Day focuses on the issue of digital violence.
As the U.N. stresses, violence against women and girls remains one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world. Globally, almost one in three women has been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, at least once in their lives. The online world poses various threats to women, too.
Indeed, digital tools are increasingly being used to abuse women and girls, including by way of image-based abuse/non-consensual sharing of intimate images (so-called revenge porn), cyberbullying, trolling, online threats, online harassment, AI-generated deepfakes such as sexually explicit images, deepfake pornography, and digitally manipulated images, videos or audio, doxxing (publishing private information), online stalking or surveillance, online grooming and sexual exploitation, and much more. These acts, while happening online, often lead to offline violence, including coercion, physical abuse, and even femicide. Digital violence targets women more than men, and especially those with public or online visibility – such as activists, journalists, women in politics, human rights defenders, and young women.
According to the data collected by various U.N. agencies:
As the U.N. emphasized, “Violence against women on online platforms is, today, a serious and rapidly growing threat that seeks to silence the voices of many women—especially those with a strong public and digital presence in fields such as politics, activism, or journalism.” This form of violence is said to be on the rise. This is due to several factors, including, “weak technological regulation, a lack of legal recognition of this type of aggression in some countries, the impunity of digital platforms, new and fast-evolving forms of abuse using AI, movements opposing gender equality, the anonymity of perpetrators, and the limited support for digital victims.”
In 2025, the UNiTE campaign to End Digital Violence against Women and Girls aims to mobilize all members of society to address online violence against women and girls. Among others, governments must end impunity through stronger laws, including laws that criminalize such violence, including the production and sharing of explicit images or videos that have been digitally manipulated, and strengthen the capacities of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute such crimes effectively. As it stands, fewer than 40% of countries have laws protecting women from cyber harassment or cyber stalking. This leaves 44% of the world’s women and girls – 1.8 billion – without access to legal protection. States could also strengthen accountability by implementing positive obligations for technology intermediaries to proactively detect harmful content and provide a safe and respectful environment online. Furthermore, technology companies must do more to address such violence. Among others, they must develop strong policies and standards to guide responses to such violence, including strengthening content moderation policies, codes of conduct and responses to reports. However, there is also a role for every user of the internet and social media. It starts with understanding that virtual abuse is real and it has a real impact on victims/survivors.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2025/11/22/united-nations-digital-violence-against-women-is-real-violence/
