Digital Gender-Based Violence: Focus of East Asia Gender Equality Forum that Debuts Next Month

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Have you heard of “digital violence”? Do you know the severity of the “digital violence” that happens around you?

Digital violence is occurring right next to you

Internet and social media have become part of people’s daily lives, as technological advancement has simplified information, video, and audio dissemination. However, along with convenience, technology has also introduced a new type of criminal behavior through digital media. Gender inequality, sexual abuse and violence, and crimes that take place in the real world have spilled over into the virtual world, becoming digital gender-based violence.

According to a 2014 survey conducted by the European Union, one in five women aged 18 to 29 experience sexual harassment online. Based on 605 news reports related to digital gender-based violence, NGOs in Taiwan also compiled a report titled, “The Collection and Analysis of News Patterns on Digital Gender-Based Violence from 2018 to 2020”. The report stated that more than 80 percent of the victims were female, including minors. In addition, 28.8 percent of the victims faced extortion by perpetrators they had met online.

Furthermore, according to a 2021 data analysis of gender images by the Executive Yuan, of the total complaint cases filed successfully in 2019 in accordance with the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act, 18.8 percent of the crime scenes were a “virtual environment via technology equipment, such as the Internet, mobile phone messages, and more”, which ranked number two on the list of all crime locations. Gender-based violence is occurring all around us.

Challenges to and Opportunities for Gender Equality in the Digital Era

Recently, several shocking incidents of digital violence have occurred in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and other East Asian countries. In addition to bringing convenience, economic growth, and employment opportunities, digital technology also challenges the development of gender equality and widens the income gap between the rich and the poor.

In 2018, the Nth Room incident in South Korea shocked all of Asia. In 2022, the same type of crime also occurred in Taiwan, when more than 300 victims were blackmailed into sharing sexual images of themselves. The images were then tagged with a serial number, priced, and sold online along with their personal information, such as social media accounts, school, and class information. These crimes don’t just happen in Asia. Digital gender-based violence and crisis need to be addressed globally.

At the same time, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women has prioritized the theme of “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” as the focus for the CSW67 next year. Scheduled for March of 2023 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the experts, scholars, and activists of gender equality and women’s rights will gather to discuss the rapid development of information and communication technology in the digital era, and how to improve women’s well-being and unleash their economic potential within such an environment, while simultaneously assisting women and vulnerable groups to assert their basic human rights and obtain welfare protection.

East Asia Gender Equality Forum: Challenges, Opportunities, and Ethics in the Digital Age

The Open Society Foundations and the Foundation for Women’s Rights Promotion and Development, as human rights and women’s rights advocates, share the concern that digital gender-based violence will become the latest threat endangering the rights of women.

Therefore, the first East Asia Gender Equality Forum will debut on November 11 this year in Taipei. Online participation will be open to workers of gender equality and women’s rights issues in Asia as well. The Forum has invited NGO representatives from Japan and South Korea, and social media representatives including Meta and Twitter, who will discuss the challenges, opportunities, and ethical issues of gender-based violence in the digital age with on site and online guests.

We have come to acknowledge that the key to achieving gender equality in the digital age is to focus on the growing threat of digital gender-based violence, while effectively applying digital technology towards gender equality advocacy. East Asian Countries share similar culture and social development contexts, with similar levels of economic development. We believe that gender equality workers in East Asia are also facing numerous common challenges and experiences that also include aspects unique to the local social structure.

We look forward to establishing the East Asia Gender Equality Forum to serve as a platform in the future for networking and dialogues among various East Asian NGOs. In addition to building a friendlier and more secure digital technology environment to protect women from the threat of digital gender-based violence, the use of resources and conveniences brought by technology will facilitate the promotion of gender equality and empower women to realize their potential.

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