The two central research activities were:
fered from depression, fear, anxiety, sleeping difficulties, and a sense of powerlessness. In some cases,
the violence resulted in economic loss because survivors were forced to quit their jobs, and in the case
of students, it deeply affected their education. Because of the stigma associated with several aspects of
technology-related VAW (especially in cases of sexual
content or slander), the violence often left survivors
isolated and alienated from their communities.
• Mapping domestic legal remedies through desk
reviews/interviews
• Conducting in-depth interviews to gather women’s
and girls’ experiences of accessing justice and
compiling case studies.
A total of 24 case studies were documented across
the seven countries, and each country’s domestic legal remedies were mapped.
Technology-related VAW can be situated within a culture of impunity, which is characterised by a failure in
the application of legal processes, and the perception that acts of VAW will remain unpunished. The
research found that a culture of impunity in cases
of technology-related VAW was present across all
seven countries. This was often further aggravated
by corruption within the legal system and a lack of
political will to address VAW.
The research was limited by two factors. The first
was that all the laws and interviews reviewed were
analysed in English after being translated from their
original languages. The research was conducted
under the assumption that the English translations
were faithfully made from the original languages. The
second limitation of the research was that survivors
were not always available for interviews. In these
instances, social workers, relatives or legal counsel
mediate their voices.
Adequacy and effectiveness
of women’s access to justice
Understanding technologyrelated VAW
The research outlines how women approached various and multiple agencies in pursuit of remedies for
technology-related VAW. The following were common steps that women took:
Technology-related VAW as mapped by the case
studies includes taking, uploading or distributing
photos and videos without consent; altering and
uploading photos and videos; harassment; stalking;
blackmail or threats; accessing or disseminating
private data; creating fake profiles or other forms of
identity theft; hate speech; child pornography; and
sexual assault or rape.
• Reporting the incidents to government agencies
nearest to them, most often to the police station or
municipal hall.
• In instances where the survivor and perpetrator
were both students and belonged to the same
university, the survivor sought help from school
authorities.
Contrary to popular belief, such violence is not deviant and episodic, but an everyday event in the lives
of women and girls all over the world. In fact, if the
range of violence that women experience is seen on
a continuum that arises from deep-seated misogyny
and gender inequality, technology-related VAW exists on the same continuum as “offline” violence.
• Survivors approached the public prosecutor’s
office for investigation and prosecution of their
cases.
In order to assess the adequacy and effectiveness
of these strategies, the legal and policy landscapes
of the seven countries were examined in reference
to their efficacy in protecting women’s rights. All
seven countries are signatories to the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW), and have specific clauses on
gender equality in their constitutions. However, only
five countries had enacted a gender equality law
(mandated by CEDAW) and only three had provided
a comprehensive definition for VAW encompassing
psychological and financial harms, to name a few.
This being said, technology-related VAW is characterised as a distinctive phenomenon on the basis
of (a) its mode of perpetration, since ICTs allow for
rapid dissemination of content, making technologyrelated VAW harder to contain, and (b) the possibility
of anonymity afforded by digital media and the corresponding fear felt by women who did not know their
abusers.
The most significant harms of technology-related VAW
are psychological, as a result of which women suf-
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