Digital Violence Against Women and Girls
Date of Meeting: 23 March 2021
Meeting Organizer: Women in Digital Initiative
ISJC Staff Present: Kayla Calvo
Reporter: Kayla Calvo
Which SDG does this topic cover? 5
Type of meeting: Commission on the Status of Women Parallel Event
Brief summary of presentation of information made
Fangchun Chu (Framework Gender-based Cyber Violence in Taiwan)
1. Privacy Violations
- Doxing, up skirting (taking pictures with spy cameras/phones under the skirts of women and girls), hacking/cyber stalking, and intimate partner violence.
2. Abuse of Images
- Revenge porn, abuses such as deep nude (taking a picture that a woman took and removing the clothing from the picture) and deep fake (altering the audio of a video), and using platforms of distribution such as Facebook, porn sites, and LINE
3. Other Sexual harassment and assault
- Cyber flashing (sending obscene pictures and videos through airdrop, virtual reality groups)
4. ICT- related human trafficking
- Recruitment via internet and using private images to control victims.
5. Hate speech and behavior
- Comprehensive sexist hate speech, rape or death threats against individuals, inciting gender violence, and gender derogation against individuals
Professor Gail Dines
Child pornography is now called child sexual abuse images- Why?
- Children cannot consent to pornography.
- It is a documentation of child sexual abuse.
We should be re-naming pornography to ‘women sexual abuse images’ so it captures the reality of porn as documentation, distribution, and consumption of violence against women.
- Porn sites receive more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.
- There is at least one act of violence against women and girls in all videos uploaded.
- Porn is not considered violence against women because it is ‘consented’.
- The ‘bad’ actors use trafficked women, underage girls, revenge porn (all porn is revenge against women), and force to get women into porn.
- The ‘good’ actors use women who ‘consent’, women who sign consent forms, women over 18 years old, women who find porn ‘empowering’.
Short term goals: having government legislation that defines women sexual abused images as non-state torture and holds sites accountable.
Long term goal: regulate the porn industry out of existence!
The constraints: poverty, racism, histories of sexual abuse, histories of substance abuse, being pimped out, sexual fraud (consent vs informed consent), socialisation of women and girls in patriarchy.
President Seunghui Seo (Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center (KCSVRC)
- The feminism NGOs strive to solve problems occurring in cyberplace.
- Established by 20-30s age group around 2015, when feminism was rebooted in Korea.
- Support cyber sexual and violence victims.
- Promote policy and legislative amendments.
- Educate and ameliorate public recognition.
- Fight for issues and regarding it as important.
Professor Nicola Henry (Dating Violence Against Women & Girls):
- The Australian Context Image-Based Sexual Abuse incudes
- The non-consensual taking, sharing or threats to share nude or sexual images.
- Recording or distribution of sexual assault images.
- Threatening to share images in DV contexts.
- Computer hacking by strangers.
- Sextortion scams.
- Creepshots, up skirting, down blousing.
- Deepfake or fake porn.
- Trading non-consensual images online.
Study: prevalence and impacts
- 1 in 3 respondents had experienced images taken of them without consent.
- 1 in 5 respondents had images shared without their consent.
- Nearly 1 in 5 had experienced threats.
“Pornography is a weapon in technology against women and girls.”
What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
That the laws regarding Cyber and Digital Violence against women and girls vary from country to country. Some countries have strict policy and laws that protect and prevent digital and cyber violence, but other countries do not. Therefore, it is important that women and girls be careful of any images/videos that they share with others/friends, but to also tell those they trust if they are experiencing cyber and digital violence. With the advancement of technology, cyber and digital violence and porn has increased and it is easier now to have access to this type of violence. It is vital that The Salvation Army is aware of what is going on in this industry in order to recognize signs of abuse and help victims within the communities where it has a presence.
Web links for more information
Recorded Event: https://ngocsw65forum.us2.pathable.com/meetings/virtual/ioteKijRg76cb2WQq
Tags: SDG5: Gender Equality