75% Of Women And Girls Experience Violence Online

The United Nations (UN) has estimated that nearly 75% of women and girls that use the Internet have experienced different forms of online violence.

According to the new report of  the United Nations Broadband Commission, despite the rapidly growing number of women experiencing online violence, only 26 % of law enforcement agencies in the 86 countries surveyed were taking appropriate action.

The organization urged governments and industry to work harder and more effectively together to protect the growing number of women and girls who were victims of online threats and harassment.

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The new report titled “Combating online violence against women and girls: A worldwide wake-up call” was presented on Thursday, August 24, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The research was released by the commission’s Working Group on Gender which included representatives from the tech sector and the civil society hoped the report would mobilise the public and private sectors to establish concrete strategies aimed at stemming the rising tide of online violence against women.

The report urges that without concerted global action to curb the various forms of online violence, an unprecedented surge of cyber violence against women and girls could become rampant and significantly impede the uptake of broadband by women everywhere.

It also explains that cyber violence against women and girls already exists in many forms, including online harassment, public shaming, the desire to inflict physical harm, sexual assaults, murders and induced suicides.

“The rapid spread of the Internet means that effective legal and social controls of online anti-social and criminal behaviours continue to be an immense challenge. In the age of the social Internet and mobile access, cyber violence can strike at any time, and can relentlessly follow its targets everywhere they go,”  the research says.

Houlin Zhao, the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, states that failure to address and solve cyber violence could significantly impede the uptake of broadband services by girls and women worldwide.

“The net is an amazing resource for personal empowerment, and we need to ensure that as many girls and women as possible benefit from the amazing possibilities it offers,” he said.

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