#16DaysOfActivismAgainstGBV: Using Pioneer Technology to Measure Global Perceptions of Gender-Based Violence Online

Paula Rudnicka, Legal Advisor at the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and Technical Advisor to ABA ROLI-led Women and Girls Empowered (WAGE) consortium, shares insight about her work at the World Bank’s Law, Justice, and Development Week (photo courtesy of Nate Palmer). 

By Paula Rudnicka

The Internet has transformed the world in many positive ways, but its role as a catalyst for freedom of expression and innovation is being undermined by a growing epidemic of gender-based violence (GBV) perpetrated online, i.e., through social media, email, messaging, knowledge-sharing, dating, and other online platforms. While GBV online is on the rise, concrete data on its prevalence and impact is scarce.  To address this data gap, in 2018 the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and RIWI Corp. entered into a unique private-public partnership to conduct a global study on perceptions of GBV online. To gather this invaluable data, the partners built a Web-based survey with 17 questions about the nature, prevalence, impacts, and responses to GBV online. Using RIWI’s global trend-tracking and predictive technology, the survey reached over 170,000 respondents across all genders and was completed by over 40,000 Internet users from 15 developing countries, resulting in the largest and most unique study on the subject of GBV online to date. The countries covered by the study included Bosnia & Herzegovina, Ghana, Indonesia, India, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Nepal, Peru, Serbia, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam, and South Africa. The program was implemented within the USAID-funded Human Rights Support Mechanism (HRSM), under the PROGRESS consortium managed by Freedom House. Last month, Paulina (Paula) Rudnicka, Legal Advisor at the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and Technical Advisor to ABA ROLI-led Women and Girls Empowered (WAGE) consortium, spoke about GBV online at two sessions of the World Bank’s Law, Justice, and Development Week. 

The survey resulted in a rich dataset, demonstrating that acts of GBV online are widespread and have a profound impact on victims’ lives both online and offline, particularly given their persistent, fast-spreading, and easily replicable nature. Nearly 40% of our respondents reported not feeling safe from harassment and violence while online. Approximately 22% of all respondents indicated that they have personally experienced online violence and approximately 10% of respondents felt that the online violence against them was gendered. Nearly half of respondents personally affected by GBV online experienced it more than once, and for 9% of them it is a daily occurrence. In all surveyed countries except India and Kazakhstan respondents cited Facebook as the most common online setting where they faced GBV online. In India, YouTube was most frequently cited, and in Kazakhstan it was online gaming. The vast majority of respondents who have experienced GBV online reported tangible impacts, primarily fear for their own safety. Approximately 9% of them became violent online towards someone else, which illustrates a self-amplifying nature of this phenomenon. Interestingly, 77% of respondents personally affected by GBV online took a concrete action after the violence occurred, and women were more likely to do so than men. The most common reaction was blocking, muting, or unfriending the abusive user, followed by reporting GBV online, primarily to online service providers, but also to the police or other authorities, and to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). After reporting GBV online, far more men received a response from the pertinent stakeholder than women, which is also very telling. In some countries, the most common reaction was a decrease in online activity, which demonstrates the silencing effect of GBV online, when people are forced to self-censor to protect themselves. This has a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression and undermines a wide range of other political and socioeconomic rights. In terms of solutions, nearly one-fifth of all respondents considered public awareness campaigns to be the most effective way of reducing GBV online, and 37% asserted that Internet users have the primary responsibility for reducing it, followed by online platforms and governments, schools, and NGOs. 

As we call for the elimination of all forms of GBV during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and beyond, we must remember that GBV is perpetrated both offline and online, and that both types of violence require urgent and effective solutions by a wide range of state and non-state actors, including governments, civil society, international organizations, and the private sector actors.


Rudnicka is a Legal Advisor at the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and Technical Advisor to ABA ROLI-led Women and Girls Empowered (WAGE) consortium.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of ABA ROLI.