Digital violence is intensifying, yet nearly half of the world’s women and girls lack legal protection from digital abuse

Women in leadership, business, and politics face deepfakes, coordinated harassment, and gendered disinformation designed to drive them to deplatform or leave public life altogether. Across the world, one in four women journalists report online threats of physical violence, including death threats. 

“What begins online doesn’t stay online. Digital abuse spills into real life, spreading fear, silencing voices, and—in the worst cases—leading to physical violence and femicide,” said UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous. “Laws must evolve with technology to ensure that justice protects women both online and offline. Weak legal protections leave millions of women and girls vulnerable, while perpetrators act with impunity. This is unacceptable. Through our 16 Days of Activism campaign, UN Women calls for a world where technology serves equality, not harm.”

Reporting of online abuse and violence remains low, justice systems are ill-equipped, and tech platforms face little accountability. The rise of AI-generated abuse has only deepened impunity across borders and platforms. But there are signs of progress. Laws are beginning to evolve to meet the challenges of technological change: from the UK’s Online Safety Act to Mexico’s Ley Olimpia to Australia’s Online Safety Act and the EU’s Digital Safety Act, new reforms are taking shape. As of 2025, 117 countries reported efforts addressing digital violence, but efforts remain fragmented for a transnational challenge.

UN Women is calling for:

• Global cooperation to ensure digital platforms and AI tools meet safety and ethics standards.
• Support for survivors of digital violence by funding women’s rights organizations.
• Holding perpetrators accountable through better laws and enforcement.
• Tech companies to step up by hiring more women to create safer online spaces, removing harmful content quickly, and responding to reports of abuse.
• Investments in prevention and culture change through digital literacy and online safety training for women and girls, and programmes that challenge toxic online cultures.

Feminist advocacy has driven global recognition of digital violence as a threat to women’s fundamental human rights resulting in growing prioritization and action against digital violence by countries. However, shrinking civic space, coupled with unprecedented funding cuts and pushback against feminist movements threatens to undermine decades of progress. In this context, initiatives such as the EU-funded ‘ACT to End Violence against Women and Girls’ programme are more important than ever to support feminist movements in their push for justice.

This year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign calls for urgent global action to close legal gaps and hold perpetrators and tech platforms accountable. To support governments and policymakers, UN Women is launching two new tools – the Supplement to the Handbook for Legislation on Violence against Women on Technology-facilitated violence against women and girls and the Guide for Police on Addressing Technology-Facilitated Violence, which complements previous guidance for police on addressing violence against women and girls from the Handbook on Gender-Responsive Police Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence – providing practical guidance for prevention and response. Until the digital space is safe for all women and girls, true equality will remain out of grasp, everywhere.

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About the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is a global campaign led by UN Women under the UNiTE to End Violence against Women initiative. It runs each year from 25 November to 10 December, connecting the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Human Rights Day.

In 2025, the campaign focuses on ending digital violence against all women and girls – one of the fastest-evolving forms of abuse worldwide. Digital violence includes online harassment, stalking, gendered disinformation, deepfakes, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images, all of which are rising sharply as technology advances.

The 2025 UNiTE campaign calls on governments, technology companies, and communities to act now – to strengthen laws, end impunity, and hold platforms accountable. It urges sustained investment in prevention, digital literacy, and survivor-centred services. It also calls for long-term support to women’s rights organizations that are leading efforts to make digital spaces safe and inclusive for all.

About ACT

The Advocacy, Coalition Building and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) programme, is a game-changing commitment between the European Commission and UN Women as co-leaders of the Action Coalition on Gender Based Violence (GBV), in collaboration with the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. The ACT shared advocacy agenda is elevating the priorities and amplifying the voices of feminist women’s rights movements and providing a collaborative framework focused on common priorities, strategies and actions.

About UN Women

UN Women exists to advance women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. As the lead UN entity on gender equality, we shift laws, institutions, social behaviours and services to close the gender gap and build an equal world for all women and girls. We keep the rights of women and girls at the centre of global progress – always, everywhere. Because gender equality is not just what we do. It is who we are.