To date, cyber Violence against Women and Girls has not been fully conceptualised or legislated against at EU level. Furthermore, there has been no gender-disaggregated EU-wide survey on the prevalence and harms of cyber Violence against Women and Girls and there is limited national-level research within EU Member States. However, the research that is available suggests that women are disproportionately the targets of certain forms of cyber violence compared to men.
For example, in a survey of more than 9,000 German Internet users aged 10 to 50 years, women were significantly more likely than men to have been victims of online sexual harassment and cyber stalking, and the impacts of these forms of violence were more traumatic for victims. This finding is corroborated by a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center in the United States, which found that though men are slightly more likely than women to experience relatively ‘mild’ forms of online harassment (such as name-calling and embarrassment), women (particularly young women aged 18-24) disproportionately experience severe types of cyber harassment, namely cyber stalking and online sexual harassment.
The results of these studies are echoed by further research, exposing the limitations in taking a gender blind approach to cyber violence; the current evidence suggests that the forms of violence and the resulting harm is experienced differently by women and men. In addition, experts have warned against conceptualising cyber Violence against Women and Girls as a completely separate phenomenon to ‘real world’ violence, when in fact it is more appropriately seen as a continuum of offline violence.
For example, cyber stalking by a partner or ex-partner follows the same patterns as offline stalking and is therefore intimate partner violence, simply facilitated by technology. Evidence confirms this continuum: a UK study of cyber stalking found that over half (54 %) of the cases involved a first encounter in a real-world situation.
Furthermore, data from the 2014 FRA survey shows that 77 % of women who have experienced cyber harassment have also experienced at least one form of sexual or/ and physical violence from an intimate partner; and 7 in 10 women (70 %) who have experienced cyber stalking, have also experienced at least one form of physical or/and sexual violence from an intimate partner.
Defining forms of cyber violence against women and girls
There are various forms of cyber Violence against Women and Girls, including, but not limited to, cyber stalking, non-consensual pornography (or ‘revenge porn’), gender-based slurs and harassment, ‘slut-shaming’, unsolicited pornography, ‘sextortion’, rape and death threats, ‘doxing’, and electronically enabled trafficking.
In this paper, EIGE’s primary focus will be on those forms of cyber Violence against Women and Girls that most closely link to Intimate Partner Violence, due to our existing knowledge of the severe impact of Intimate Partner Violence on victims; these include: cyber stalking, cyber harassment and non-consensual pornography. As with Intimate Partner Violence experienced offline, cyber Violence against Women can manifest as various forms of violence, including sexual, psychological and, as growing trends would indicate, economic, whereby the victim’s current or future employment status is compromised by information released online. The potential for violence in the cyber-sphere to manifest psychically should also not be discounted. However further research into the experiences of victims of cyber Violence against Women and Girls is needed to better understand its impact.
There are no agreed definitions of these forms of cyber Violence against Women and Girls at EU level; therefore the following explanations are based on a review of the literature.
Cyber Stalking
Cyber stalking is stalking by means of email, text (or online) messages or the internet. Stalking involves repeated incidents, which may or may not individually be innocuous acts, but combined undermine the victim’s sense of safety and cause distress, fear or alarm.
Acts can include:
Sending emails, text messages (SMS) or instant messages that are offensive or threatening;
Posting offensive comments about the respondent on the internet;
Sharing intimate photos or videos of the respondent, on the internet or by mobile phone.
To be considered as cyber stalking, these acts must take place repeatedly and be perpetrated by the same person.
Cyber Harassment
Cyber harassment can take many forms, but for the purposes of this paper, it can include:
Unwanted sexually explicit emails, text (or online) messages;
Inappropriate or offensive advances on social networking websites or internet chat rooms;
Threats of physical and/or sexual violence by email, text (or online) messages;
Hate speech, meaning language that denigrates, insults, threatens or targets an individual based on her identity (gender) and other traits (such as sexual orientation or disability).
Non-consensual Pornography
Also known as cyber exploitation or ‘revenge porn’, non-consensual pornography involves the online distribution of sexually graphic photographs or videos without the consent of the individual in the images. The perpetrator is often an ex-partner who obtains images or videos in the course of a prior relationship, and aims to publicly shame and humiliate the victim, in retaliation for ending a relationship.
However, perpetrators are not necessarily partners or ex-partners and the motive is not always revenge. Images can also be obtained by hacking into the victim’s computer, social media accounts or phone, and can aim to inflict real damage on the target’s ‘real-world’ life (such as getting them fired from their job). There have been multiple publicised cases of female victims of non-consensual pornography in EU Member States and the US over recent years, several of whom committed suicide as a result. Research suggests that up to 90 % of revenge porn victims are female and that the number of cases is increasing.
There are also a growing number of websites dedicated to sharing revenge porn, where users can submit images alongside personal information such as the victim’s address, employer and links to online profiles. An additional related trend with equally devastating impacts on victims is the live-broadcasting of incidents of sexual assault and rape via social media. So far in 2017 there have already been two high-profile cases: one in Sweden and the other in the U.S., of victims whose rape was streamed online using the ‘Facebook live’ function.
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