Submission by the Association for Progressive Communications to the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on the issue of technology-facilitated gender-based violence against women and girls

“TFGBV serves to promote cultures of violence, exacerbate the gender digital divide, worsen women’s economic exclusion, stifle women’s voices, and infringe upon women’s rights to political participation. In short, TFGBV can not only replicate, but amplify and normalise existing cultures of patriarchal violence and misogyny.”[1]

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) together with the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) welcome the opportunity to provide input to the call published by the Human Rights Council (HRC) Advisory Committee on the issue of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). The call aims at collecting contributions that will be used in the preparation of a study to be presented to the HRC during its 63rd session. This submission is presented jointly, and references publications from both networks, as well as research that includes both independent and collaborative work undertaken by APC and IM-Defensoras.

According to HRC Resolution 56/19, the study seeks to develop a better understanding of TFGBV, highlighting good practices around the globe in tackling gender-based violence that occurs through or is amplified by the use of technology, and making recommendations on how to address the issue.

APC has been a consistent actor in the efforts for women’s rights and women’s participation online ever since its foundation in 1990, with special early momentum leading up to the 1995 UN World Conference on Women.[2] Since then, APC has evolved from facilitating capacity-building spaces and policy advocacy conversations at the intersection of gender and information and communications technologies (ICTs), to developing comprehensive frameworks for addressing technology-related gender issues, including the Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM),[3] APC’s Social and Environmental Justice Programme (SEJ) Framework for developing gender-responsive cybersecurity policy,[4] and pioneering knowledge-building work on TFGBV through GenderIT,[5] the Take Back the Tech! initiative[6] and the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN).[7] APC also approaches the intersection of gender and ICTs through its current strategic areas of work on human rights, environmental justice, feminist internet, digital inclusion and internet governance.[8]

Moreover, in 2013, APC and partners achieved the first recognition of online gender-based violence in a global policy document about violence against women (VAW)[9] in the form of an explicit mention of ICTs, through the visibility and traction that technology-related VAW was gaining. APC embarked on a trajectory of achieving recognition of online gender-based violence (OGBV) in two further international policy documents in 2014 and 2017.[10] In 2018, APC and other advocates working against OGBV claimed a milestone victory, which was the recognition of online gender-based violence in the Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution entitled “Accelerating efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls: preventing and responding to violence against women and girls in digital contexts”.[11]

The Mesoamerican Initiative for Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) is a convergence articulating almost 3,000 women human rights defenders (WHRDs) and 300 feminist organisations and networks of women defenders from different Mesoamerican social movements. The Initiative has been addressing violence targeting WHRDs, including TFGBV, since it emerged in 2010. IM-Defensoras' extensive documentation of attacks against defenders offers specialised insight. Furthermore, 
IM-Defensoras’ Feminist Holistic Protection (FHP) strategies seek to protect and strengthen defence work in the region in conditions of security, well-being, leadership and autonomy.

Over the years, we have seen more widespread reference to and recognition of online gender-based violence (now also defined as technology-facilitated gender based violence) and its impact, with its many variations and manifestations as a continuum of other forms of gender-based violence, beyond internet governance spaces, and more specifically, in human rights and women’s rights forums. For APC and IM-Defensoras, it is important to ensure that, when speaking about TFGBV, the conversation is not only centred on women and girls, as this specific call mentions. We believe that the analysis and mandate of this study should be expanded to evaluate the differentiated, gendered impact that TFGBV has in the lives of women, girls and LGBTQIA+ persons, with particular attention to WHRDs.[12]

IM-Defensoras and APC are partners in Safety for Voices, a Global South-based consortium focused on achieving “greater safety, both online and offline, for human rights defenders worldwide.”[13] 

We highlight in this submission the need to recognise and use interchangeably both technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) as well as online gender-based violence (OGBV) in order to not disregard and the work and research that has been done using the concept of OGBV in the past. Both concepts are equally important. This submission is structured according to the questionnaire prepared by the HRC Advisory Committee.

Read the full submission here.