“In front of the Screens” research on gender-based violence in the digital environment

Girls are not as safe in a digi­tal envi­ron­ment as boys

Results of the rese­arch “In front of the Scre­ens” on gender-based violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment

NGO “Atina” has publis­hed its latest rese­arch “In front of the Scre­ens” about gender-based violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment. The rese­arch was conduc­ted in the first half of 2022, with the parti­ci­pa­tion of 624 18 and 19-year-old girls from 24 high scho­ols in Belgrade, Niš and Subo­tica.

The issue of safety took a key place in the rese­arch due to the risk of digi­tal violence which is higher among girls, and the results indi­cate that the highest percen­tage of respon­dents (78 percent of them) beli­eve they are not as safe as young men. More than half of the respon­dents who parti­ci­pa­ted in the rese­arch (53.2 percent of them) stated that they have expe­ri­en­ced violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment and that they know a peer who has had this expe­ri­ence.

They conclu­ded that women and girls are more expo­sed to violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment than men and boys, and as the most common reason, the respon­dents stated that girls are more often expo­sed to judge­ment if their beha­vi­our differs from an alre­ady esta­blis­hed or expec­ted pattern (62 percent). The second most common reason why girls suffer violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment more often, 24 percent of them state that girls are more expo­sed to violence in gene­ral, and that violence just spre­ads into the digi­tal envi­ron­ment as well. 

Girls are not to blame for the violence they expe­ri­ence

Only 53.2 percent of respon­dents stated that girls are not to blame for the violence they expe­ri­ence, regard­less of the content they post in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment. On the other hand, almost a quar­ter of respon­dents (23.1 percent) said that girls do have a respon­si­bi­lity and should choose the content they post, as this is a way to protect them­sel­ves from violence. A slightly lower number, 18 percent, beli­e­ves that girls must use pass­words, and keep their profi­les private as that is a good way to protect them­sel­ves.

Based on the common charac­te­ris­tics of the forms of violence menti­o­ned by the respon­dents, it can be conclu­ded that they most often recog­nize verbal violence, which in their opinion inclu­des insults, offen­sive comments rela­ted to their appe­a­rance, belitt­ling, humi­li­a­ting comments, etc.

The rese­arch showed that great distress, fear and anxi­ety are the most common conse­quen­ces of abuse of girls in Serbia through infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­lo­gies, which occur along with a number of other psychophy­si­cal and emoti­o­nal conse­quen­ces, such as depres­sion, phobias, suici­dal thoughts or suicide, diffi­cul­ties in esta­blis­hing emoti­o­nal rela­ti­ons, and others.

Only 10 percent of respon­dents would formally report violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment

“Only about 10 percent of respon­dents would decide to formally report violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment, which once again confirms that we all have an impor­tant task ahead of us – above all, strengt­he­ning the social response, which would not place the blame for violence on the victim herself, rather crea­ting a space that nurtu­res the survi­vors’ expe­ri­en­ces and syste­mi­cally prevents further occur­ren­ces of such prac­ti­ces. The respon­dents also testify that, just because they are girls, they receive vari­ous comments about their appe­a­rance in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment, and the photos they post are often the target of male criti­cism. On the other hand, vari­ous busi­ness offers, expli­cit photos in private messa­ges, and fake profi­les used to send inap­pro­pri­ate content are mostly crea­ted by men; one of the inter­vi­e­wees descri­bed this as a ‘Bal­kan misogyny of a parti­cu­lar kind’,” conclu­ded Zorana Pare­za­no­vić from NGO Atina.

When asked to indi­cate whom they would turn to in the event of violence in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment, respon­dents stated they would turn to their parents first, in 59.4 percent of cases, or to a trus­ted adult; 21.7 percent of them would turn to their friends; and even lower number, 10.2 percent of the girls, indi­ca­ted that they would turn to the police or some other insti­tu­tion. Only 4.3 percent of the girls said that they would first look for infor­ma­tion before appro­a­ching anyone.

In most cases, the respon­dents do not perceive the digi­tal envi­ron­ment as safe, for a number of reasons, and they also recog­nize the gender dimen­sion of digi­tal violence against girls.

They iden­tify vari­ous sour­ces of possi­ble harm in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment and high­light the disclo­sure of perso­nal data as the grea­test risk, linking it to other forms such as possi­ble perse­cu­tion, cyber­bom­bing, etc. The second most frequently menti­o­ned source of risk in the digi­tal envi­ron­ment is the option to post comments on a girl’s physi­cal appe­a­rance as well as perso­nal insults under the photos, videos and other content crea­ted by respon­dents on the Inter­net (targe­ting).

As the autho­res­ses of the rese­arch state, the spread of the influ­ence of digi­tal networks has not only inten­si­fied exis­ting forms of male violence, but has also crea­ted new mecha­nisms for causing more damage and harming girls and women.

“Testi­mo­nies of girls’ indi­vi­dual expe­ri­en­ces while using commu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­lo­gies and the Inter­net confirm there is a deeply rooted rela­tion between gender stere­oty­pes and gender-based violence; Because of that, the impor­tance of a strong, targe­ted and conti­nu­ous response to the causes of this issue must be raised to a higher level. The preva­lence of male violence against women, as well as its impu­nity, strengt­hens social and indi­vi­dual readi­ness to allow and tole­rate violence against women and girls, but also to be silent about it. Despite the fact that this form of violence is omni­pre­sent, cyber or digi­tal violence is actu­ally no diffe­rent from other forms of violence against women as it has the same basic goal – domi­nance of men over women and keeping the male posi­tion of power over women, with a parti­cu­lar comple­xity, as traces of this form of violence remain on the Inter­net fore­ver,” said Zorana Pare­za­no­vić, NGO Atina’s project coor­di­na­tor.