The Women’s Rights and the Civil Liberties committees discussed a legislative initiative calling for a directive to establish the minimum rules concerning: the definition of the crime of gender-based cyber-violence and related sanctions; new measures to promote the prevention of this crime; and to ensure justice and support for victims. A panel was also organised for the yearly meeting on "Eliminating Violence against Women"which explored the current state of affairs in policy and practice in focused areas of gender-based violence.

statement

meeting

VOZEMBERG-VRIONIDI, Elissavet (EPP, EL)

violence against women (T)

Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality

SPUREK, Sylwia (Greens/EFA, PL)

Combating Gender based Violence - Cyber Violence: statement by Sylwia SPUREK (GREENS/EFA, PL), Rapporteur and extracts of the meeting on "Eliminating Violence against Women" panel on cyberviolence

SOUNDBITE (English), Sylwia SPUREK (Greens/EFA, PL), Rapporteur, According to the research, women face comments on their private and intimate life, on their appearance on their family life, and they face threats of sexual violence, including including rape. Men don't.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sylwia SPUREK (Greens/EFA, PL), Rapporteur, We call for a comprehensive directive on gender based violence, including cyber violence, but also for ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the EU. Because, as I said before, this is just a new old problem and which is very important. We need to also include some measures, measures to support and protect the victims and also to target perpetrators. In my opinion, we also need to cooperate with social media platforms because their role is crucial to combat cyber violence, and they need to finally take the responsibility for hate speech. There is a clear line between hate speech and freedom of speech, and it should be very clear also for social media platforms, and they need to establish some mechanisms to monitor comments and to protect the users.

Atmosphere shots of the interpariamentary committee meeting of the Committee of the on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on the occasion of the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women, panel on Cyberviolence, 6 shots

SOUNDBITE (English), Michela PALLADINO, Safety Policy Manager EMEA, Meta (formerly Facebook), In particular, we develop tools for people to be in control of what they share, how they share it, and with whom, people can control their privacy settings, they have features such as unfriend and unfollow, report content. They can block people, they can mute conversation. They have the ability to turn off messages from anyone they don't know, and also to filter messages that are abusing so that they can never so that they don't get to see them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michela PALLADINO, Safety Policy Manager EMEA, Meta (formerly Facebook), We use hashing and media matching technologies to detect, remove and report the sharing of images and video that exploit women. This technology create unique digital fingerprints, which are called hashes of image and videos that are banked and then used to detect and remove attempts to upload copies of these of the originals. This technology was primarily developed and used for child sexual abuse material and terrorist content. We were proud to be the first company in 2017 to use it, also to detect non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michela PALLADINO, Safety Policy Manager EMEA, Meta (formerly Facebook), I know that you're discussing an EU policy framework. You're encouraging one with the report that you're voting today, and we think that such a policy framework could tackle this issue, including online and offline solutions to empower women, support survivors, sanction perpetrators, provide law-enforcement bodies with the necessary training and resources, but also and very specifically, educating generations to come, educating boys, men and other everyone to respect women and and not perpetuate any form of violence and abuse against them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dr. Zuzanna WARSO, Human Rights Expert, Women&apos;s Rights Group Polish Bar Council, The hateful abuse that women are are experiencing in an online environment causes many women and girls to withdraw from participating online, including expressing their views on online platforms.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dr. Zuzanna WARSO, Human Rights Expert, Women's Rights Group Polish Bar Council, I strongly believe that the entire internet intermediaries and online platforms have not only ethical, social, but also legal and human rights responsibilities to their users and others affected by their network.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dr. Zuzanna WARSO, Human Rights Expert, Women's Rights Group Polish Bar Council, One of the obligations of the state is to recognise the role of online platform and introduce binding measures.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josephine BALLON, Head of Legal at HateAid, 52 percent of young women in the European Union between 8 and 35 years already have been affected themselves.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josephine BALLON, Head of Legal at HateAid, We see also the publication of personal data, the so-called doxxing. We see that fake profiles of the victims spread lies and other forms of cyber stalking. We see dick pics sent to young women and other pornographic material.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josephine BALLON, Head of Legal at HateAid, We need to create an awareness in public service and install a contact presence for women in authorities and especially law enforcement, to teach them about online violence, but also especially concerning the needs of women.

SOUNDBITE (English), Asha ALLEN, Center for Democracy and Technology, Women are 27 times more likely to experience harassment online in comparison to men. This increases a further 84 percent if you are a woman of colour. And experiences of online gender based violence is only increasing, especially during the height of the pandemic.

SOUNDBITE (English), Asha ALLEN, Center for Democracy and Technology, Politically engaged women in particular, face significant levels of violence online. This includes women journalists, human rights defenders and civic space organisers, and this reality impacts on their ability to engage in their civic space activities on their civic space duties, which is a vital aspect to a thriving democracy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Asha ALLEN, Center for Democracy and Technology, The Digital Services Act is a profound opportunity to reshape our digital ecosystems and define new rules on platform governance, and it's a much needed regulation. So it's vital the EU gets this right.