Recent high-profile cases of online bullying and trolling, as well as a growing number of women speaking publicly about what they face online every day, have focused many Americans’ attention on the issue of online harassment. Now a new report by a United Nations group makes it clear that online abuse is a global problem, one that threatens women’s health, safety and economic participation in developing countries as well as in the United States.
The report, issued on Thursday by the U.N. Broadband Commission for Digital Development’s working group on gender, lists six types of online violence against women: harassment, impersonation (for example, sending emails as someone else), surveillance (recording a victim’s keystrokes or other behavior), hacking into a victim’s accounts to steal information or control a device, using fake profiles or other means to lure someone into a dangerous situation, and sharing or threatening to share private media like nude photos. As Internet access, especially via mobile devices, spreads around the world, so do these forms of violence, the report notes.
In many ways, the rise of mobile technology has been a boon to women around the world. They can use mobile devices to get health information in the privacy of their homes, noted Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of U.N. Women and co-chair of the working group that produced the report, or to operate their own businesses. And Internet access lets women in the developing world use many of the same sites and resources that people in wealthier countries can use. “It is an equalizer,” Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
But women won’t see the full benefits of access if they remain at risk of threats and hate speech every time they use their mobile devices. To mitigate the problem, the report calls for a three-pronged approach combining education and outreach about online harassment, industry safeguards to protect users and enable them to report abuse, and laws to punish those who harm others online.
Creating a safer and more equitable Internet won’t just be about stopping bad behavior — as the report notes, it’s also important to actively promote gender equality and women’s participation. The report’s authors praise groups like World Pulse that encourage women to speak out online, and call on tech companies to elevate more women to positions of power.
Much of the report will be familiar to those who have followed the issue of online harassment, especially those who have suffered it themselves. But it’s significant that the United Nations has chosen to take up the issue. One of the U.N.’s sustainable development goals for the next 15 years, the report notes, is gender equality, and that can’t be achieved if women aren’t safe online.
Fighting harassment by an enormous number of often anonymous users across a variety of different platforms won’t be easy. But acknowledging it as a serious problem requiring attention at a global scale is, at least, a step.