What are the consequences of digital abuse and online violence?

From Manila to Mexico City, from Nairobi to New York City, women are on the front lines of digital violence. It can happen in rural or urban settings, and across income brackets. From anonymous threats to abuse and control by intimate partners, it can take many shapes and forms.

For example, women living low income or rural households often share devices or depend on others for access to phones, computers, or the Internet. In these settings, perpetrators restrict or monitor access to devices or power sources, and exploit limited digital literacy to commit both economic and digital violence. 

The targets are familiar: young women, politicians, journalists, women human rights defenders, and activists often singled out with sexist, racist, or homophobic slurs. For migrant and racialized women, those with disabilities, the abuse can be even more extreme, combining misogyny with other forms of hate and exclusion.

And it is getting worse. UN Women research shows that aided by AI-powered technology, these abuses are fast growing in scale and sophistication. The consequences are grave and reach far beyond the screen: 

• In the Philippines, an analysis revealed that 83 per cent of survivors experienced emotional harm, 63 per cent sexual assault, and 45 per cent physical harm linked directly to online abuse. 
• In Pakistan, online harassment has been tied to femicide, suicide, physical violence, job loss, and the silencing of women and girls in online spaces. 
• In the Arab states, 60 per cent of women internet users reported exposure to online violence. 
• In Africa, 46 per cent of women parliamentarians said they had received online attacks. 
• In Latin America and the Caribbean, 80 per cent of women in public life reported restricting their online activities out of fear of abuse. 

The pattern is clear: digital abuse has real-world consequences. It is increasingly linked to violent extremism, silences women’s voices in politics and media, and can even lead to femicides when technology becomes a weapon for stalking or coercion.