International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

  Africa's digital transformation is accelerating at an extraordinary pace. Internet access has grown at more than double the global rate and a new generation is connecting to opportunities their parents could never have imagined. But there is a dark side spreading just as fast as the connectivity itself – one that threatens to lock women and girls out of the very revolution they should be leading. This rising digital violence is more than a gendered threat; it is a challenge to sustainable development itself. When women and girls cannot participate safely online, Africa’s digital transformation cannot deliver the inclusive growth, innovation, and social progress needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals. Africa stands at an inflection point. With 70 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans under 30, this is the world's youngest continent as we experience the fastest technological transformation in history. Internet access in Africa has grown at 16.7 per c...

  Hybrid press Conference by Annalena Baerbock, President of the 80th session of the General Assembly, on issues including the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons and International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Wome n. ----- The President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, announced the launch of the formal selection and appointment process for the next Secretary-General, and said “the world is looking to the next SG to provide strong, dedicated and effective leadership in delivering on the three pillars of the United Nations; peace and security, human rights and development, and in making the United Nations fit for the future.” Baerbock told journalists in New York that the President of the Security Council, Ambassador Michael Imran Kanu, and she, as president of the General Assembly, had signed the joint letter which formally initiates the process and said, “the selection of the next Secretary-General comes at a pivotal moment for our Uni...

  Last year, 83,000 women and girls were killed intentionally. Of them, 60 per cent – 50,000 women and girls – were killed at the hands of intimate partners or family members. This means one woman or girl is killed by a partner or family member almost every 10 minutes – an average of 137 every day . In contrast, just 11 per cent of male homicides were perpetrated by intimate partners or family members. “Femicides don’t happen in isolation. They often sit on a continuum of violence that can start with controlling behavior, threats, and harassment – including online,” said Sarah Hendriks, Director of UN Women’s Policy Division . Women and girls are subjected to this extreme form of violence in every region in the world, notes the 2025 femicide report. It is estimated that the highest rate of femicide by an intimate partner/family member was in Africa (3 per 100,000 women and girls), followed by the Americas (1.5), Oceania (1.4), Asia (0.7) and Europe (0.5). Though femicides are also...

  We already live in a world where at least one in three women experience physical or sexual violence. Enter a host of extremely powerful AI tools, trained on existing gender biases, now enabling tha t violence to spread further, faster, and in more complex ways. It’s a perfect storm. While technology-facilitated violence against women and girls has been intensifying – with studies showing  16 to 58 per cent of women worldwide impacted  – artificial intelligence is creating new forms of abuse and amplifying existing ones at alarming rates. The numbers are stark: one global survey found that  38 percent of women have personal experiences of online violence , and  85 percent of women online have witnessed digital violence  against others. This isn't just about what happens on screens. What happens online spills into real life easily and escalates. AI tools target women, enabling access, blackmail, stalking, threats and harassment with significant real-wo...

  AI-facilitated violence against women refers to  acts of digital abuse generated and spread by AI technology , resulting in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm, or other infringements of women’s rights and freedoms.   The scale, speed, anonymity and ease of communication in digital spaces create an enabling context for this violence. Perpetrators feel that they can get away with it, and victims often do not know if and how they can get help, and legal systems are playing catch up with the rapid changes in technology.    According to feminist activist and author Laura Bates, the best way to address the risk of digital and AI-powered abuse is “ to recognise that the online-offline divide is an illusion .”  

Yes. AI is both creating entirely new forms of abuse and dramatically amplifying existing ones. The scale and undetectability of AI create more widespread and significant harm than traditional forms of technology-facilitated violence. Some new AI-powered forms of abuse against women include: Image-based abuse through deepfakes:  According to research,  90 to 95 percent of all online deepfakes are non-consensual pornographic images , with around 90 percent depicting women. The total number of deepfake videos online in 2023 was 550 percent higher than in 2019.  Deepfake pornography makes up 98 percent of all deepfake videos online , and 99 percent of the individuals targeted are women. Enhanced impersonation and sextortion:  AI enables the creation of interactive deepfakes impersonating humans and beginning online conversations with women and girls who don't know they're interacting with a bot. The practice of "catfishing" on dating sites can now be scaled and rendered...

Deepfakes are digitally altered images, audio, or videos created using AI that appear as though someone has said or done something they never actually did. While the technology can be used for entertainment or creative purposes, deepfakes are increasingly misused as a form of digital abuse – for example, to create non-consensual sexual images, spread disinformation, or damage a person’s reputation. Deepfakes are increasingly and overwhelmingly targeting women. Laura Bates weighed in on why – “In part, this is about the root problem of misogyny – this is an overwhelmingly gendered issue, and what we're seeing is a digital manifestation of larger offline truth: men target women for gendered violence and abuse.” “But it's also about how the tools facilitate that abuse”, adds Bates. AI technology has made the tools user-friendly and one doesn’t need much technical expertise to create and publish a deepfake image or video. In this context, the rise of "sextortion" using d...

  There is no right or wrong way to respond, and experts stress that it is vital to hold perpetrators accountable – that includes creators, advertisers and platforms that host them, and people who use them. But if you are a victim of such abuse, experts recommend contacting organizations that have the most up-to-date information on how to help.   Here are some resources, although it’s not an exhaustive list:   Stop non-consensual image-abuse  helps victims of revenge porn and prevent intimate images from being shared online. If your intimate image is in the hands of someone who could misuse it, StopNCII.org can generate a hash (digital fingerprint) of the image which prevents anyone from sharing it. Chayn Global Directory  offers a curated list of organisations and services that support survivors of gender-based violence, both online and in person.   The  Online Harassment Field Manual – Help Organisations Directory  ...

Less than half of countries  have laws that prosecute online abuse and where they do exist, enforcement is weak. Additionally, there is limited reporting and access to justice, and tech platforms lack accountability. The transnational nature of AI-generated digital abuse further drives impunity. UN Women’s call to action for the 16 Days of Activism includes the need for laws and their enforcement to ensure perpetrators’ accountability, together with better support for victims and survivors and digital literacy for women and girls.   Laws are beginning to adapt to emerging trends, although they're struggling to keep pace with rapid developments in generative AI .  Some examples include:   The UK Online Safety Act  (passed in 2023) made it illegal to share explicit images or videos that have been digitally manipulated. However, the Act does not prevent the creation of pornographic deepfakes or s...

Technology companies have a critical role to play in preventing and stopping AI-generated digital violence . They should:   Make pornographic deepfake or "nudify" tools inaccessible to consumers and children.   Refuse to host images or videos created by these tools.   Develop clear, easily accessible reporting features for responding to abuse and respond swiftly and effectively when victims report abusive content.   Implement proactive solutions for identifying falsified content, including auto-checking for algorithmically detectable watermarks.   Mandate tagging or identification of AI-generated content.   Recruit more women as researchers and builders of technology and work with women’s organizations in designing AI tech.

  “ There is massive reinforcement between the explosion of AI technology and the toxic extreme misogyny of the manosphere ” , says Laura Bates . “ AI tools allow the spread of manosphere content further, using algorithmic tweaking that prioritizes increasingly extreme content to maximize engagement .”   The  manosphere  is a growing corner of the digital world and comprised of a loose network of online communities that claim to address men’s struggles – dating, fitness, or fatherhood, for example – but often promote harmful advice and misogynistic attitudes. This content is gaining traction –  two-thirds of young men  regularly engage with masculinity influencers online, and the content on manosphere not only  normalizes violence  against women and girls, but has growing links to radicalization and extremist ideologies. Learn more about the Manosphere and what you can do.   Aided by the ease of AI tools, online ...

  Our digital experts recommend the following actions:   Educate  – yourself and others about digital literacy, source skepticism, and the realities of AI-facilitated abuse. Understanding how these tools work and their gendered impact is the first step toward meaningful change. Stay safe  – Use strong and unique passwords, turn on two-factor authentication in all your accounts, use private profiles and periodically check your privacy settings on all social media platforms and apps to protect your personal information. For more tips on how to spot signs of online abuse, read Online Safety 101.   Take action  – Demand accountability from tech platforms and companies creating and profiting from AI tools. And follow and support feminist-led campaigns working on the issue. Amplify their content, sign their petitions, or contact your legal repre...

  The digital world promised connection and empowerment – but for millions of women, it has become a hunting ground.  Schoolgirls are grappling with  fake nude images  of themselves circulating on social media. Female business leaders are increasingly targeted with  deepfakes and coordinated harassment campaigns . And women in the public eye face torrents of abuse:  one in four women journalists  and  one in three women parliamentarians  worldwide report online threats of physical violence, including death threats.  Different lives, different contexts, same pattern. This is digital abuse – one of the fastest-growing forms of gender-based violence, and it is spreading across borders and platforms, threatening women and girls everywhere – online and offline.  Experts say the problem is vast, with anywhere between  16 and 58 per cent  of women worldwide reporting online violence or harassment, and now new technologies like ar...

  Digital abuse  (also called technology-facilitated violence against women and girls) covers a wide spectrum of violent behaviours. It can look like:   Online harassment and cyberstalking : repeated, unwanted messages, cyber-flashing, creepshots, surveillance such as tracking your location, or monitoring your activity.   Image-based and deepfake abuse : sharing private images without consent, or creating AI-generated sexual content through morphing, splicing, or superimposing photographs and videos to create deepfakes. These are sometimes called revenge porn.   Violent pornography : images of sexual aggression and gendered violence in pornography widely available on the internet which is normalizing and perpetuating violence against women and girls.   Trolling, threats, and blackmail : abusive comments designed to silence or intimidate, gender-based hate speech, threatenin...