Women’s rights

Key terms

Gender-based violence

Gender-based violence (GBV) refers to harmful acts directed at an individual or a group of individuals based on their gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms. The term is primarily used to underscore the fact that structural, gender-based power differentials place women and girls at risk for multiple forms of violence. While women and girls suffer disproportionately from GBV, men and boys can also be targeted. The term is also sometimes used to describe targeted violence against LGBTQI+ populations, when referencing violence related to norms of masculinity/femininity and/or gender norms.

Violence against women and girls

Violence against women and girls is defined as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women and girls, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. Violence against women and girls encompasses, but is not limited to, physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family or within the general community, and perpetrated or condoned by the State.

Survivor of violence

The term survivor of violence refers to any person who has experienced sexual or gender-based violence. It is similar in meaning to “victim”, but is generally preferred because it implies resilience.

No means No. Yes means Yes. Consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity or enter into marriage. It must be freely and actively given and cannot be provided by someone who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol or by someone underage. Consent is specific, meaning that consent to one act does not imply consent to any others, and reversible, meaning that it may be revoked at any time.

Types of violence against women

Domestic violence

Domestic violence, also called domestic abuse or intimate partner violence, is any pattern of behavior that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. It encompasses all physical, sexual, emotional, economic and psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This is one of the most common forms of violence experienced by women globally.

Learn more: The signs of relationship abuse and how to help

Femicide

Femicide refers to the intentional murder of women because they are women, but may be defined more broadly to include any killings of women or girls. Femicide differs from male homicide in specific ways. For example, most cases of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners, and involve ongoing abuse in the home, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations where women have less power or fewer resources than their partner.

Sexual violence

Sexual violence is any sexual act committed against the will of another person, either when this person does not give consent or when consent cannot be given because the person is a child, has a mental disability, or is severely intoxicated or unconscious as a result of alcohol or drugs.

Learn more: 16 ways you can stand against rape culture

Human trafficking

Human trafficking is the acquisition and exploitation of people, through means such as force, fraud, coercion, or deception. This heinous crime ensnares millions of women and girls worldwide, many of whom are sexually exploited.

*Online/Internet recruitment: The internet provides traffickers with enormous scope to seek out and groom marginalised individuals. Sexual exploiters can scan social media for young, vulnerable individuals. The study by the UOT Human Trafficking Institute, shows exploiters searching sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and dating apps like Tinder for posting activity which might indicate vulnerability. Targeted themes include substance abuse, runaway activity and destabilisation within the home. They will chat to the vulnerable, appear caring and build their trust. The APPG report discusses a 2017 case of a group of women trafficked from Eastern Europe to the UK for sexual exploitation. Here, the principal male suspect recruited females via the social media site ‘Badoo’. In their online chats, he lured them in with false promises of shop work or relationships. Upon arrival, they were taken straight to a brothel and coerced by threats of violence to their families back home.

Additionally, digital technology can be used as a surveillance tool to trap victims in the industry. Jennifer Gaines claims that her trafficker placed recording devices on her phone to track her every movement. Additionally, 50% of victims claim they were forced to make pornography at some point. Aside from generating profit in itself, pornography is used as a form of psychological manipulation to keep victims locked in the industry by making them believe they are permanently ‘tarnished’ since they are now on the internet forever. It is also worth noting here that when porn is non-consensual, involves coercion, violence or blackmail, it becomes a form of sex trafficking in its own right.

Female genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It is classified into four major types, and both the practice and the motivations behind it vary from place to place. FGM is a social norm, often considered a necessary step in preparing girls for adulthood and marriage and typically driven by beliefs about gender and its relation to appropriate sexual expression. It was first classified as violence in 1997 via a joint statement issued by WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA.

Online/digital/cyber violence

Online or digital violence against women refers to any act of violence that is committed, assisted or aggravated by the use of information and communication technology (mobile phones, the Internet, social media, computer games, text messaging, email, etc) against a woman because she is a woman.

Online violence can include the following.

  • Cyber-bullying: Cyberbullying involves the sending of intimidating or threatening messages.
  • Cyber-harassment:Cyber Harassment is an assailant’s use of ICT to harass, control, manipulate or habitually disparage another online user without a direct or implied threat of physical harm. Unlike physical harassment involving face-to-face contact, cyber-harassment requires the use of ICT and is verbal, sexual, emotional or social abuse of a person. The cyber harasser’s primary goal is to exert power and control over the targeted victim(s).
  • Cyber-stalking: Cyber-stalking is the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to stalk, control, manipulate or habitually threaten a child or adult. Cyber-stalking is both an online assailant  tactic and typology of psychopathological ICT user. Cyber-stalking includes direct or implied threats of physical harm, habitual surveillance and gathering information to manipulate and control a target. Cyber-stalking requires a direct or implied threat of physical harm by the assailant.
  • Revenge porn: The distribution, use or upoloading of personal photos or videos with sexual content without the prior consent of the depicted people. The abuser obtains images or videos in the course of a prior relationship, or hacks into the victim’s computer, social media accounts or phone. Women make up more than 95 percent of reported victims.
  • Image-based sexual abuse: Ιmage-based sexual abuse extends beyond the familiar forms of non-consensually distributed private sexual images and their initial ‘publication’, to include all subsequent ‘distributions’ whether in hard form or electronically, including via peer-to-peer networks, and whether or not the person to whom it is distributed has already seen it. Distribution covers, therefore, the ‘primary’ distributor (e.g. the ex-boyfriend or hacker), as well as ‘secondary’ distributors who later forward the image (though this does not necessarily mean that every distribution attracts criminal sanction). The inclusion of secondary distributors is important, conceptually, because it is their actions that enable the image to ‘go viral’ and, particularly when accompanied by threatening and abusing text, their actions escalate the harms suffered. Similarly, those who host non-consensually created and/or distributed private sexual images, such as website operators and social media applications, facilitate the harassment and abuse (though again with varying degrees of culpability and legal responsibility). While there is inevitable and reasonable disagreement as to the level of culpability of primary, secondary and ‘hosting’ distributors, all fall within the category of distributors of private sexual images and play a key role in perpetrating and facilitating image-based sexual abuse. This is because without secondary or hosting distributors, the harms of image-based sexual abuse would not be so significant.
  • Sexist haste speech: Sexist hate speech relates to expressions which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on sex. Some groups of women are particularly targeted by sexist hate speech (notably young women, women in the media or women politicians), but every woman and girl is a potential target for online and offline sexist hate speech.  The increasing availability and use of Internet and social platforms have contributed to growing occurrences of sexist hate speech.
  • Creep shots/ digital voyeurism: “Creepshots” is a name for images of unsuspecting women taken by a man/boy who focuses on the women’s genitals for their sexual pleasure. Many women are being unwittingly photographed and ending up in “creepshots” posted online in a forum called creepshots.
  • Doxing: Doxing involves the public release of private or identifying information about the victim with the aim of their public shaming or embarassment.
  • Abusive sexting: Sexting is the consensual electronic sharing of naked or sexual photographs or messages. This is different, however, from the non-consensual sharing of the same images without the prior consent of the people involved with the aim to cause them harm.
  • Mob attacks/ cyber mob: Hostile mobs include hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, systematically harassing a target.

Hacking

Hacking is an attempt to exploit a computer system or a private network inside a computer. It is the unauthorised access to or control over computer network security systems for some illicit purpose.

Online impersonation

There are four broad categories of online impersonation that can be illegal:

  • Defamation: When someone uses the impersonation to spread false and malicious statements about an individual.
  • Harassment: When someone impersonates a person in order to threaten or harm someone else.
  • Professional impersonation: When someone impersonates a public servant acting in their professional capacity.
  • False light: This one is a little more complicated, but essentially it boils down to presenting truthful information in a way that is specifically designed to be misleading and harmful.

Malicious distribution

Malicious software, or malware, can be distributed in many different ways. Malware may be sent via email attachments, may be placed in downloadable files on the Internet, or may be installed when a computer user follows a link to a website. Backdoors, computer viruses, and trojan horses are all examples of software that is considered malicious and that can be installed using these or other methods.

Data protection

‘‘Personal data’’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (data subject). An
identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an
identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors
specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.