Preventing digital gender-based violence in the UK and Spain: Cross-cultural collaboration through widening education and literacy
Project team
Funder
ESRC Impact Acceleration Account
Collaborators
Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Coventry University leading)
Duration
01/02/2024-01/02/2025
Project overview
Digital forms of gender-based violence reflect wider socio-cultural and structural inequities, and the use of technology in gender-based violence is growing in Europe and internationally. This project starts from the UK and Spain as a point of collaboration, and then scales this out to a wider European context, where there are both similarities in legislative processes (Online Safety Bill, EU Digital Servies Act) and organisations tackling technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). We bring together experts in both countries, co-producing preventative models to through cross-sector work with stakeholders in policy, government, advocacy, and healthcare, to generate outputs for the prevention of future forms of TFGBV.
Specifically, the project brings together non-academic partners FemBloc and Márgenes y Vínculos (in Spain) and Rufuge and Chayn (in the UK), along with other leading experts, through our own networks and our collaboration with colleagues at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (García Mingo and Díaz Fernández as part of the Digital Sexual Violence project).
Through this collaboration, we will build an adaptable and multilingual strategic framework for TFGBV intervention for the European context, and with the capacity to be scaled further, that provides 1) commitment to targeting TFGBV at the government and policy level; 2) a ‘mapping’ of impact actor networks across the UK and Spain for future collaboration; and 3) “future proofing” for emergent trends around digital violence including the use of AI and remote location tracking. Outputs from the project will include hakathon syllabi and tech design principles wiki generated at a knowledge exchange workshop with a view to campaigning, collating educational and training materials, and other activities that increase wider knowledge, skills, literacy, and visibility.
Project objectives
Our aims to are to:
- Tackle key challenge areas to implement pathways to justice through collaborative non-academic, cross-cultural and international knowledge-exchange that leads to change through the power of collective voice;
- Generate a shared understanding of TFGBV and digital sexual violence and map impact actor networks across the UK and Spain;
- Draw on this knowledge-exchange to formulate prevention-oriented activities that can seed cross-cultural change at a formative moment in the policy landscape in relation to digital harms and safety in both the UK and Spanish/EU juncture;
- Activate these outputs with a wider academic, public, government, and stakeholder group through collaboration and activator events in the UK and Spain, as well as through other venues (e.g. Brussels).
These will be achieved through the following objectives: - Engage with four non-academic partners (two UK, two Spanish), as well as representatives from the Spanish Ministry of Equality, on current and future digital harms, at partner exchanges and other events held in Madrid and Coventry;
- Represent these activities through a project website that connects relevant people and gives information on key contacts and agendas;
- Co-organise and co-produce material at the knowledge exchange workshops and beyond with a view to campaigning, generating syllabi, collating educational and training materials, and other activities that increase wider knowledge, skills, literacy, and visibility;
- Communicate these outputs to policy, governmental, and education organisations through producing a project report and project pack that includes resources that are accessible and free-to-download on the project website.
- Host an intensive Fall coaching series in Brussels (both an EU and Coventry University strategic hub) to equip leaders across business, policy and government to counter TFGBV in their own contexts, enabling and empowering them to carry out subsequent training within their sector, thus extending impact delivery beyond the project team.
Impact statement
Many practitioners, researchers, and experts agree that technology facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is increasing globally and pervasive, even while many of the highest figures still likely underestimate the true prevalence given that TFGBV is likely to be massively underreported (The Global Partnership, 2023), and in some cases may be difficult to know when it is happening.
Such prevalence creates a significant challenge to women’s human rights, equal participation in society, and the ability to live a life free from fear or threat. UN Women (2022) identify that online violence against women and girls (VAWG) can be as harmful as offline VAWG, “with serious impacts on health and wellbeing as well as serious economic, social and political impacts”.
The societal impact of this project lies in its focus on the prevention of TFGBV and in building tools to help organisations facilitate such prevention and awareness raising themselves, allowing them to challenge the economic, social and political impacts of TFGBV.
Outputs
Divisar Un Futuro Juntas. Encuentro de organizaciones que trabajan por la violencia de género digital. Presentation of the project at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain 17th April 2024.
Workshop on Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain 10th and 11th June 2024.
Summit on Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence Prevention at CU Brussels Hub, Belgium 19th and 20th November 2024.
Digital Safety-by-Design: AI and Future Harms, wiki and hackathon workshop plan, to be made live 19th November 2024
