Gender-based violence (GBV) is an umbrella term for violence against people based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. It is a discriminatory act and a violation of human rights.

Key aspects include*:

• GBV targets individuals because of their gender or sexual orientation, disproportionately affecting women and LGBTQ people.
• It can be physical, economic, sexual, or psychological.
• GBV occurs in both private spaces (intimate partner violence) and public spheres (catcalling, workplace harassment, sex-trafficking).
• The experience of GBV varies based on socioeconomic factors like age, ethnicity, disability, economic stability, or migration status.
• GBV can take both online and offline forms.

*https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.unhcr.org/what-we-do/protect-human-rights/protection/gender-based-violence&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1760002166840895&usg=AOvVaw207fZyAb4GwwCEC3F4KYh-
 

"Any form of discrimination based on sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinions, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited."
 

Gender-based violence occurs due to multiple interconnected factors:

• Power and control dynamics drive some people, disproportionately men, to use violence to dominate others, especially women or those who don't fit traditional gender roles. 

• GBV is both a symptom and a perpetuator of gender inequality, which is reinforced through various behaviors including violence itself. Harmful gender stereotypes—such as "men must be dominant" or "women should be submissive"—lead to violence when people fail to conform to societal expectations. 

• The normalization of violence in media and everyday life makes it seem acceptable and usual. 

• Weak justice systems that fail to protect victims and often distrust them allow GBV to persist, as perpetrators face few or no consequences. 

• Increased vulnerability due to material or symbolic disadvantage puts certain groups at higher risk: homeless and refugee women and LGBTQ people often lack safe spaces, have destabilized social and economic situations, and face dehumanization, making them particularly susceptible to GBV.

Gender-based violence (GBV) goes beyond harming individuals—it includes spreading hate messages or threats against entire groups like women or LGBTQ people. This can take the form of sexist, homophobic, or transphobic jokes, hateful comments, or false claims shared publicly or online.

These messages are harmful because they*:

• Normalize disrespect and discrimination.
• Reinforce harmful stereotypes about targeted groups.
• Create unsafe environments where people feel afraid, ashamed, and disdained.
• Encourage violence and harassment by making attackers feel supported.

When people are constantly exposed to hateful content, it becomes easier to justify hurting members of those groups, turning public hate into personal attacks.

*https://www.google.com/url?q=https://firn.genderit.org/research/left-out-project-report-case-online-gender-based-violence-framework-inclusive-transgender&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1760002166842922&usg=AOvVaw1AtbVa2Srq4KEpc8nirbIg
 

“Technology-facilitated gender-based violence, or TFGBV, is an act of violence perpetrated by one or more individuals that is committed, assisted, aggravated and amplified in part or fully by the use of information and communication technologies or digital media, against a person on the basis of their gender.” (UNFPA, 2023)
Even though many forms of TFGBV take place in online and digital spaces, it also includes such forms of violence that are committed with the use of any type of technology that does or does not need internet to operate (phones, GPS tracking devices, drones or recording devices etc.).

UNFPA, 2023: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/TFGBV_Brochure-1000x560.pdf

Online Gender-Based Violence Key Factors

• Anonymity: Online anonymity allows perpetrators to attack others without being caught, emboldening harassers who can easily create and discard accounts, making sustained abuse difficult to trace.
• Poor regulation of social media: Moderation systems are often automated, under-resourced, and lack cultural sensitivity. Recently, platforms like Meta and X have loosened content moderation rules, leading to increased hate speech and abuse against women, LGBTQ people, and marginalized groups.
• Fast speed of information spread: Platforms like Discord, Reddit, or Telegram are used to trade non-consensual sexualized content, including child pornography. Even when removed, such content quickly spreads to offline storages or encrypted channels, making full removal impossible and retraumatizing victims.
• Blurring of public and private spheres: Online spaces collapse boundaries between public and private life, allowing private messages, intimate photos, or personal data to be weaponized and made public without consent.
• Lack of legal accountability: Online violence is poorly defined in law and rarely prosecuted. Victims face dismissal from authorities or are told to "just go offline," despite the real impact on mental health, safety, and employability.

1. Online gender and sexual harassment: such as unwanted messages, social media posts, and phone calls. It specifically targets individuals because of their gender or sexual identity that includes misogynistic, homophobic, or transphobic comments or threats.
2. Cyberstalking: Women may be harassed on digital platforms in comment sections, bombarded with explicit messages, and tracked through GPS and location-based apps, sparking a digital nightmare that often spills into their offline lives.
3. Image-based abuse: Sharing intimate photos without consent including non-consensual sharing of intimate images (= cyber-flashing), deep fakes or sending unsolicited images of genitals to another person 
4. Technology-facilitated sexual abuse: sextortion (= blackmail by threatening to publish sexual information, photos or videos), online grooming for sexual assault (= the process by which an adult befriends a child with the intention of committing sexual abuse. The perpetrator builds a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with the child, often through chat rooms, social media, or online forums. This can lead to sexual exploitation or, in extreme cases, physical meetings with dangerous outcomes)
5. Doxing = publishing private personal information.

And others: https://www.ictworks.org/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence/ 
 

• Cyberbullying is a form of violence that is emerges among children, teenagers and young adults.
• “Cyber bullying against girls means any form of pressure, aggression, harassment, blackmail, insult, denigration, defamation, identity theft or illicit acquisition, treatment or dissemination of personal data, carried out repeatedly by ICT means on the grounds of gender or a combination of gender and other factors (e.g. race, disability or sexual orientation), whose purpose is to isolate, attack or mock a minor or group of minors.” (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2022)
• Cyberbullying is characterised by its’ repetitiveness which makes the most harm to a targeted person. 
• There is a higher risk for LGBTIQ people and students with special needs to experience cyberbullying.

Typical forms: Name-calling, defamation, exclusion, trolling (UNICEF, 2018).

Cyberstalking refers to repeated monitoring, harassment, or contact designed to instill fear, anxiety, or a sense of being threatened. It often occurs via email, social media, messaging apps, or digital tools that enable location tracking or activity surveillance.

A key aspect is repetition and intent to intimidate, which distinguishes it from isolated incidents.

Cyberstalking is frequently linked to intimate partner violence, reflecting men’s sense of entitlement and desire for control over women, or it can involve strangers. 
Women and LGBTQ individuals are targeted not only due to personal relationships but also based on gender identity, sexual orientation, or their public roles (e.g., activists, politicians).

Research shows that cyberstalking often precedes in-person sexual or physical violence. 

The intent of those who use this type of violence is to:

• Disturb
• Abuse 
• Threaten
• Frighten 
• Annoy

In 2019, Law no. 69 (the so-called Red Code) introduced the crime of illicit dissemination of sexually explicit images or videos, punished by art. 612 ter of the Criminal Code.

Non-consensual pornography refers to the online sharing of sexually explicit images or videos without a person's consent, often to shame or harm them. While it's commonly done by ex-partners seeking revenge, perpetrators can also be strangers. The material may be obtained during a past relationship but also through hacking (social media accounts, computer or phone), and the goal is often to cause serious harm in online as well offline world, for example get fired from job or they lead to suicide. 

Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA) refers to a range of behaviors involving the non-consensual creation, sharing, or threats to share nude or sexual images. Offenders may be current or former partners, relatives, friends, strangers, or online users, driven by motives such as revenge, sexual gratification, control, social status, money, or voyeurism. The images might be self-taken (e.g., selfies), consensually shared during a relationship, secretly recorded, digitally manipulated, coerced, or even depict sexual assault*.

It includes:

• Sextortion: blackmailing someone into providing more intimate content.
• Non-consensual sharing (revenge porn): distributing explicit images to shame or harm someone, sometimes combined with doxing.
• Unauthorized collecting/sharing:  sharing explicit content in private groups or on platforms without consent.
• Secret recordings: covertly filming intimate areas or moments (e.g., upskirting, downblousing, in bathrooms).
• Fake or altered porn (deepfakes): using someone’s likeness to create fake sexual content.

The goal is the subordination of women, belonging to vulnerable categories

*https://eige.europa.eu/publications-resources/thesaurus/terms/1459?language_content_entity=en&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1760002166808717&usg=AOvVaw38W0YgWnecXFLLBEdQ6jQd
 

Identity theft involves stealing sensitive data such as identity cards, bank details, or passwords to make unauthorized purchases, access health or financial information, and commit various crimes.

While not exclusively gender-based violence, it has a gendered dimension: 

• Men are more than twice as likely to experience identity theft (23%) compared to women (11%)
• Women show greater concern about becoming victims (70% vs 64% of men) and adopt more protective behaviors—they are more likely to protect their social media accounts, less likely to connect with strangers online, and less prone to sharing personal details publicly

Identity Theft Objectives:

• Financial: accessing bank accounts, obtaining loans or credit cards, committing tax fraud.
• Doctors: Receiving health care or medication in the victim's name.
• Fiscal/legal: entering into contracts, obtaining benefits, or creating false identities.
• Personal/social: Defame, retaliate, or harass using fake profiles.
• Corporate: stealing commercial identities for fraud or espionage.
• Criminals: financing or facilitating other crimes (e.g. fraud, terrorism).
   

Digital life = real life

Online gender-based violence has concrete impacts on the health, safety, and futures of survivors

• Mental health toll: Survivors often face anxiety, depression, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, or attempts. Especially those targeted with sexualized content are frequently blamed and socially stigmatized.
• Physical safety risk: Online abuse can escalate into stalking or physical assault; digital tools can help abusers locate victims.
• Social and reputational harm: Victims face public shaming, misinformation, and damage to their reputation and relationships.

Sources: UNFPA (2023); FÉR (2024)
 

• Economic exclusion: TFGBV can reduce access to income or job opportunities, especially for those working online.
• Political and public silencing: Online abuse leads to self-censorship and withdrawal from civic life, especially among activists, journalists, and leaders.
• Reinforces patriarchal norms: By pushing women and gender-diverse people out of public space, TFGBV sustains structural inequalities.
• Obstacles to SDGs: TFGBV is a barrier to gender equality and democratic participation.

Sources: UNFPA (2023); FÉR (2024).
 

On 8 December 2023, an information document was published by the Postal Police containing data on online gender-based violence.

• In 2022, 347 women reported online threats.
• In 2022, 101 women were victims of online stalking and in the first ten months of 2023, 87 cases were recorded
• In 2022, 412 women were victims of online harassment and in the first ten months of 2023, 377 cases were recorded
• In 2022, 191 cases of revenge porn came to the attention of the Police Postal and, as of 31 October 2023, there were 163 complaints for the illegal dissemination of sexually explicit images or videos by women
   

When16–58% of women have experienced digital abuse and technology facilitated violence*. Particularly in Europe, in the survey provided by Amnesty international, nearly a quarter (23%) of the women surveyed that they had experienced online abuse or harassment at least once.**
 
Sexual harassment and stalking are the most commonly reported forms of technology-facilitated violence experienced by women and girls. Next most frequent forms of online abuse are image-based abuse (sharing intimate photos without consent) and unwanted messages.

Altough all women and girls are at risk of TFGBV, the highest risk of online gender-based violence it’s about:

• Young women and girls: Global study (2020) found that 58% of girls and young women have experienced some form of online harassment. A higher proportion of young people aged 25 and under (68,5%) reported having personally experienced at least one type of TFGBV than people over the age of 25 (56,9%), and reported the attack had a very negative impact on their personal life.
• Women who face multiple forms of discrimination, such as racialized, minoritized and migrant groups of women, as evidenced by Research Paper Technology-facilitated violence against women: Taking stock of evidence and data collection (2023).
• 75,8% LGB people reported experiencing any form of online harm (compared heterosexual people in 57,2%). Also, a higher proportion of LGB people reported that online harms very negatively impacted their mental health (35,8%) than heterosexual people (24,7%).
• Transgender and gender-diverse people. They reported experiencing any form of online harm in 87,7% cases compared to LGB women (76,7%) or LGB men (72,6%).
• Women in the public eye, including politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, and activists, face heightened levels of online abuse.
   

*https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/faqs/digital-abuse-trolling-stalking-and-other-forms-of-technology-facilitated-violence-against-women&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1760002166815429&usg=AOvVaw2-6MM9fe-wSxZjIS9Y9Is0

**https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2017/11/amnesty-reveals-alarming-impact-of-online-abuse-against-women/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1760002166816408&usg=AOvVaw0PFfIt0pQv-jn6EtzfPkhn

• Taking screenshots: fundamental evidence to report to the platform or report  
• Report to the platform: many social media allow you to 'report' violence or abuse
• Report: provide the evidence collected. Doing so following the report to the platform
• Seek support: Engage with friends, family, or a professional
   

1. Document the Abuse

• Take screenshots of all abusive content (messages, posts, profiles, comments, etc.) as soon as possible, perpetrators often delete or hide them.
• Save metadata (timestamps, usernames, URLs, etc.), if possible.

2. Report the Abuse to the Platform

• Use built-in tools to report posts, messages, or users violating community guidelines (e.g. harassment, hate speech, impersonation).
• Follow the platform’s specific procedures, some offer specialized forms for image-based abuse or impersonation.

3. File an Official Complaint or Police Report (if applicable)

• Depending on the jurisdiction, consider reporting to national cybercrime units or specialized police departments.
• Share all documented evidence. Some countries now recognize TFGBV under gender-based violence or digital safety laws.

4. Seek Support

• Talk to trusted friends or family for emotional support.
• Reach out to specialized NGOs, feminist organizations, or legal aid services. Many offer free legal advice or psychological counseling.
• If you're in danger or feel unsafe, contact emergency services.

5. Strengthen Your Digital Safety

• Change passwords, activate two-factor authentication, review privacy settings.
• Consider blocking or muting abusers, and avoid engaging directly.

Sources: UN Women (2021), UNFPA (2023), Amnesty International (2020), Tactical Tech Collective.

• Cross-sector collaboration: Governments, tech companies, women's organizations, and civil society must co-create policies for prevention and protection.
• Survivor-centered legislation: Legal frameworks must define TFGBV as a criminal offense, hold platforms accountable, and involve survivors in shaping laws.
• Tech sector accountability: Platforms must meet transparency standards regarding digital violence and data use to ensure user safety.
• Digital education and prevention: Integrate digital literacy, ethical technology use, and critical thinking into school curricula, working especially with boys, caregivers, and educators.
• Challenging harmful norms: Reject misogynistic narratives, promote positive masculinities, and use technology to spread gender-equal values.
• Women's representation in ICT: Increase women's participation in technology design to create safer, more inclusive digital spaces.
• Gender-sensitive support: Provide accessible psychological, legal, social, and healthcare services for survivors.
• Evidence-based policies: Collect gender-disaggregated data on TFGBV for effective responses.
• Prevention as priority: Both public and private sectors must invest in safety-by-design and human rights-based technology development.

• Verify before you trust: Disinformation spreads easily online. Always cross-check facts using multiple reliable and verified sources.
• Think before you share: Avoid posting personal information such as address, phone number, workplace, family details, or future plans. Even photos from home or travel may help abusers track or target you.
• Be cautious with strangers: If someone reaches out via social media or messaging apps and pressures you emotionally, avoids clear answers, or asks for favors, it could be manipulation or a scam.
• Stay alert when seeking housing or jobs: Avoid offers that lack details, require documents or photos upfront, or hint at inappropriate exchanges. Too-good-to-be-true often is.
• Safe travel matters: Be wary of transport offers with unusually low prices or no proper booking system, especially if they demand your personal data in advance.
• Recognize grooming and ‘love scams’: Be cautious of individuals who overly flatter you, contact you frequently, or rush emotional closeness. These may be tactics to manipulate or exploit.
• Protect your devices: Use strong, unique passwords, enable two-factor authentication, avoid public Wi-Fi, and keep your software and security settings updated.

Adapted from FÉR (2024): www.ferovamigracnipolitika.cz
 

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According to research carried out in Spain*, it is important to include digital technologies in the lives of victims of violence. Spanish researchers have seen that messaging-supported group meetings with victims improve the mental health of these women

• 91.6% of women in the group said that mobile phone messages helped improve their mood 
• 83.2% of women who declared a contribution of mobile phone messages to improve their mood
• 80.6% of women who said mobile phone messages contributed to feeling more connected

*Blended Therapies and Mobile Phones for Improving the Health of Female Victims of Gender Violence, Universita  de Compostela

While digital platforms play a key role in the spread of gender-based violence online, they also have a role to play in tackling it. It is necessary to train individuals who can monitor these phenomena on social media and help women in difficulty.