Resources

This report provides an overview of data concerning violence against women (VAW) online collected using the Association for Progressive Communications' (APC) online mapping tool. The purpose of the mapping tool, which was set up as part of APC's “End Violence: Women’s rights and safety online” project, was to improve APC’s existing framework for categorising online rights violations, and develop a deeper understanding of the nature and consequences of technology-related VAW. This report is intended primarily as a quantitative overview of the cases reported, with some qualitative illustration. The data is analysed from 2012 to mid-2014.

This report emerges from research carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina between July 2013 and April 2014 by One World Platform for South East Europe (OWPSEE) and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) as part of a seven-country project entitled “End violence: Women’s rights and safety online”.

This pa­per ser­ves to dis­cuss di­gi­tal as a space for po­li­tics to play out, in par­ti­cu­lar in re­la­ti­on to pu­blics and coun­ter pu­blics. It does so through the lens of what oc­cur­red in 2012 at Jo­han­nes­burg Pri­de South Af­ri­ca.

This toolkit aims to assist activists to think through their communication strategies in a way that supports movement building. It offers a practical guide to writing a communication strategy and reviews a number of tools (ICTs) and technology-related campaigns which can be used in organising work.

An important connection between women's rights activism and building <br />movements of solidarity and resistance, is communication. The internet is a fundamental and potentially transformative public space which can enable and facilitate communication at speed, across borders and through time and space. It is a stage for violences that are familiar to feminists living and resisting in spaces outside of the internet. The internet is a space too for incredible creativity and connection and according to the Association for Progressive Communications Women's Rights Programme (APC WRP) “is an extension, reflection and continuum of our movements and resistance in other spaces.”

The Human Rights Council resolution "Accelerating efforts to eliminating all forms of violence against women: eliminating domestic violence" recognises that violence against women can include acts such as cyberbullying and cyberstalking, both expressions of online VAW.

Twitter has been chosen for this study developed by Katharina Jens, a Media and Communication graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, because it has become a platform where abuse has become the most visible following the attacks of the women above. This thesis sets out to empirically provide evidence for the inequality produced online, by analysing a snap-shot of the sexual harassment a lot of women are experiencing daily on Twitter.

APC has endorsed the Non Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) comments to the Initial Report on the Privacy and Proxy Services published on May 5th and elaborated by the Privacy/Proxy Services Accreditation Services Issues working group, which will impact all groups and individuals that value the ability to protect their private information online. "If we claim to make efforts towards a safe and inclusive internet for all, a proposal that puts at risk significant numbers of already marginalised people is not compatible with this goal," APC states.

In the present report, submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 26/12, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions discusses the implications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) for the protection of the right to life.