Report: Legal gaps spurring online sexual violence
People watching video live streaming on their phones. A new report by Equality Now raises alarm over growing use of social media and online gaming to bait women and girls into sexual activities.
What you need to know:
- Predators are increasingly using social media and online gaming platforms to target potential victims because these platforms offer anonymity and operate under very limited regulation.
- The report shows lack of consistent legislation and internationally adopted laws pertaining to online sexual violence is making access to legal recourse extremely challenging
A new report by Equality Now has lifted the lid off online sexual exploitation and abuse, revealing reasons for its alarming growth across the world.
Titled Ending Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Women and Girls: A Call for International Standards, it shows international and national laws have not kept pace with changing technology, thus giving online abusers the leeway to prey on innocent and unsuspecting women and girls.
“An analysis of laws and policies related to online sexual violence, alongside in-depth discussions with survivors, activists, and lawyers actively engaging with survivors, found that international and national laws have not kept pace with changing technology, and there is no single internationally binding instrument that specifically defines and addresses the vice,” the report reads.
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable as offenders take advantage of their sex, gender and structural discrimination inherent in patriarchal society.
Gaming platforms
Predators are increasingly using social media and online gaming platforms to target potential victims because these platforms offer anonymity and operate under very limited regulation.
The report shows lack of consistent legislation and internationally adopted laws pertaining to online sexual violence is making access to legal recourse extremely challenging.
It also shows existence of inherent tension between digital rights and freedoms and the right to protection and safety against vice, and regulations of digital service providers and platforms are inconsistent and often do not do enough to protect users against online sexual violence.
“We’ve been let down by the justice system and it’s left us feeling quite helpless and hopeless that there’s been no prosecution. Nothing has been done to stop that happening to someone else. That this crime is so difficult to prosecute is really frustrating and angers me. People can get away with it far too easily and perpetrators are well aware nothing is going to happen to them,” said a survivor from the United Kingdom.
The survey examined the laws surrounding online sexual exploitation and abuse at the national level, focusing on five countries, namely Kenya, India, Nigeria, the United Kingdom (England and Wales), and the United States.
The ongoing technology and digital revolution globally has seen cases of online sexual exploitation and abuse increase tremendously with incidents of livestreaming of sexual abuse, child sexual abuse material, online sexual coercion and extortion and online sex trafficking hitting the roof.
Technological advancements and the Internet have also made it easier to groom, recruit and sexually exploit with impunity.
Standards and laws
To help end the menace, the report has recommended that the international community develop and adopt binding international standards, review and update international and regional laws and instruments to align them with the reality of the digital age and conduct up-to-date research and analysis of online sexual violence.
It has also recommended that the governments review and update legislation and policies to fully protect vulnerable people, strengthen national capacity to address the problem and collaborate with key stakeholders, including civil society organisations and digital service providers, to end the menace.
The digital service providers have also not been left behind, with the report proposing that they apply a human rights approach to policies and practices to protect users from harm.
The report is also calling on the digital service providers to collaborate with other key stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, civil society organisations and governments.
The United Nations Population Fund last year launched a global campaign dubbed Bodyright Movement to end online violence against women and girls.
The campaign drives the message that women, girls, racial and other marginalised groups are undervalued, exploited, and violated online.
Widespread harassment
It also highlights that corporate logos and copyrighted intellectual property are more highly valued and better protected than images of people’s bodies.
The drive is in addition seeking to have everyone join the movement to hold policymakers, companies, and individuals to account on ending online violence.
Reports of online harassment are widespread. From cyberstalking and hate speech to doxxing and the non-consensual use of images and video such as deepfakes, online violence is rife.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 85 per cent of women with access to the Internet reported witnessing online violence against other women, and 38 per cent experienced it personally.
Around 65 per cent of women surveyed have experienced cyber-harassment, hate speech and defamation, while 57 per cent have experienced video and image-based abuse where damaging content is shared concurrently across platforms.
Nine-two per cent of women (about nine out of 10) report online violence harms their sense of well-being and over a third (35 per cent) have experienced mental health issues due to online violence.
