Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TGBV), or tech abuse, is a problem of planetary proportions. All around the world, abuse and violence are being perpetrated through technology, and new forms of TGBV are continuously emerging. The scale and depth of the problem, and the resulting harm to women and people of marginalised genders, require urgent action.
From January 2021 – June 2022, Chayn and End Cyber Abuse, went on a journey to understand the nature of TGBV and how we can address it. The result is Orbits: a guide on how we can design interventions to tech abuse that are intersectional, survivor-centred, and trauma-informed. Co-created with thinkers, practitioners, and survivors from around the world, the guide focuses on three areas that are vital for effectively tackling tech abuse: technology, research, and policy. It explores how systems are failing survivors and how we can design interventions that leave no survivor behind.
Orbits includes an overview of what TGBV is and how it impacts survivors, analysis of how existing responses from technology, research and policy are lacking, and suggestions for how we can design better systems in these three areas. It proposes a set of design principles as the basis of an intersectional, survivor-centred and trauma-informed approach, and provides examples of what they look like in practice. It showcases work being done to tackle tech abuse through case studies, and it offers practical tools for applying the principles to your own work and context.
Orbits was supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung’s Reducing Inequalities Through Intersectional Practice programme.
Read or download the guide below:
Orbits full guide – plain text version optimised for accessibility and print
Orbits – taxonomy of tech abuse only
Orbits – survivor stories only
Orbits – design principles and applications only
Orbits – technology chapters only
Orbits – research chapters only
Orbits – policy chapters only