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having regard to Article 2 and Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union,

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having regard to Article 8, Article 83(1) and Articles 84 and 225 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

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having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and in particular Articles 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 47 thereof,

—

having regard to the communication of the Commission of 5 March 2020 entitled ‘A Union of Equality: Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, and, in particular, the objective of freeing women and girls from violence and stereotypes laid down therein,

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having regard to the communication of the Commission of 14 April 2021 on the EU Strategy on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings 2021-2025,

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having regard to the communication of the Commission of 28 September 2017 entitled ‘Tackling Illegal Content Online — Towards an enhanced responsibility of online platforms’,

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having regard to the communication of the Commission of 24 June 2020 entitled ‘EU Strategy on victims' rights (2020-2025)’,

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having regard to the communication of the Commission of 12 November 2020 entitled ‘Union of Equality: LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025’,

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having regard to the Commission proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion, by the European Union, of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence,

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having regard to the Commission proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Single Market for Digital Services (Digital Services Act) and amending Directive 2000/31/EC,

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having regard to the Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online, published by the Commission in May 2016 and to its fifth monitoring round, resulting in the document ‘Factsheet — 5th monitoring round of the Code of Conduct’,

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having regard to the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which opened for signature in Istanbul on 11 May 2011,

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having regard to the Council of Europe Convention of 23 November 2001 on Cybercrime,

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having regard to its resolution of 21 January 2021 on the EU Strategy for Gender Equality (1),

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having regard to its resolution of 10 June 2021 on promoting equality in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers (2),

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having regard to its resolution of 11 March 2021 on the declaration of the EU as an LGBTIQ Freedom Zone (3),

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having regard to its resolution of 10 February 2021 on the implementation of Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims (4),

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having regard to its resolution of 11 February 2021 on challenges ahead for women’s rights in Europe: more than 25 years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (5),

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having regard to is resolution of 21 January 2021 on the gender perspective in the COVID-19 crisis and post-crisis period (6),

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having regards to its resolution of 21 January 2021 on closing the digital gender gap: women’s participation in the digital economy (7),

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having regard to its resolution of 25 November 2020 on strengthening media freedom: the protection of journalists in Europe, hate speech, disinformation and the role of platforms (8),

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having regard to its resolution of 17 April 2020 on EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences (9),

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having regard to its resolution of 28 November 2019 on the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention and other measures to combat gender-based violence (10),

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having regard to its resolution of 13 February 2019 on experiencing a backlash in women’s rights and gender equality in the EU (11),

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having regard to its resolution of 11 September 2018 on measures to prevent and combat mobbing and sexual harassment at workplace, in public spaces, and political life in the EU (12),

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having regard to its resolution of 17 April 2018 on empowering women and girls through the digital sector (13),

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having regard to its resolution of 26 October 2017 on combating sexual harassment and abuse in the EU (14),

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having regard to its resolution of 3 October 2017 on the fight against cybercrime (15),

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having regard to its resolution of 12 September 2017 on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion, by the European Union, of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (16),

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having regard to the provisions of the United Nations legal instruments in the area of human rights, in particular those concerning women’s and children’s rights, and to other United Nations instruments on violence against women and children,

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having regard to the United Nations General Assembly resolutions of 16 December 2020 entitled ‘Intensification of efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls’ (A/RES/75/161) and ‘The right to privacy in the digital age’ (A/RES/75/176),

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having regard to the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution of 5 July 2018 entitled ‘Accelerating efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls: preventing and responding to violence against women and girls in digital contexts’ (A/HRC/RES/38/5),

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having regard to the United Nations reports of Special Rapporteurs on violence against women, its causes and consequences, in particular the report of 18 June 2018 on online violence against women and girls from a human rights perspective (A/HRC/38/47), the report of 6 May 2020 on combating violence against women journalists (A/HRC/44/52) and the report of 24 July 2020 on intersection between the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the pandemic of gender-based violence against women, with a focus on domestic violence and the ‘peace in the home’ initiative,

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having regard to the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women of 20 December 1993,

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having regard to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 10 December 1984,

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having regard to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women of 18 December 1979,

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having regard to General recommendation No. 35 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women of 14 July 2017 on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19,

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having regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989,

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having regard to General comment No. 13 (2011) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child of 18 April 2011 on the right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence,

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having regard to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and, in particular, to Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality,

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having regard to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe report on the safety of female journalists online (17),

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having regard to the European Parliamentary Research Service study on ‘Combating gender-based violence: Cyber violence — European added value assessment’,

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having regard to the European Parliamentary Research Service study entitled ‘Cyber violence and hate speech online against women’,

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having regard to the Gender Equality Index of the European Institute for Gender Equality,

—

having regard to Directive 2011/93/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (18),

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having regard to the Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2001/220/JHA (19),

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having regard to the Regulation (EU) 2021/1232 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 July 2021 on a temporary derogation from certain provisions of Directive 2002/58/EC as regards the use of technologies by providers of number-independent interpersonal communications services for the processing of personal and other data for the purpose of combating online child sexual abuse (20),

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having regard to the report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights of 3 March 2014 entitled ‘Violence against women: an EU-wide survey’,

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having regard to the report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights of 14 May 2020 entitled ‘EU LGBTI II: A long way to go for LGBTI equality’ (21),

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having regard to the legal opinion of the Advocate-General at the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, aimed at clarifying the legal uncertainty if and how the Union can conclude and ratify the Convention, delivered on 11 March 2021 (22),

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having regard to the work of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), including the latter’s European Cybercrime Centre, and its Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment,

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having regard to Rules 47 and 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

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having regard to the joint deliberations of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality under Rule 58 of the Rules of Procedure,

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having regard to the report of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (A9-0338/2021),

A.

whereas gender equality is a fundamental value and a core objective of the Union and should be reflected in all Union policies; whereas the right to equal treatment and non-discrimination is a fundamental right enshrined in Article 2 and Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), Articles 8, 10, 19 and 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Articles 21 and 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the ‘Charter’); whereas the first objective of the Union’s 2020-2025 Gender Equality Strategy focuses on ending gender-based violence and describes it as ‘one of our societies’ biggest challenges’, as it affects women at all levels of society, regardless of age, education, income, social background or country of origin or residence, and is one of the most serious obstacles to achieving gender equality;

B.

whereas violence against women and girls and other forms of gender-based violence are widespread in the Union and are to be understood as an extreme form of discrimination which has a huge impact on victims and their families and communities and a violation of human rights entrenched in gender inequality, which they contribute to, perpetuate and reinforce; whereas gender-based violence is rooted in the unequal distribution of power between women and men, in established patriarchal structures and practices and gender norms, sexism and harmful gender stereotypes, and prejudices which have led to domination over and discrimination by men against women and girls in all their diversity, including LGBTIQ people;

C.

whereas violence against women should be understood to mean all acts of gender-based violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life or perpetrated online or offline;

D.

whereas women and girls in all their diversity and LGBTIQ people can be targeted by gender-based cyberviolence on the grounds of their gender, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics; whereas intersectional forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on race, language, religion, belief, national or social origin, belonging to a national or ethnic minority, birth, sexual orientation, age, state of health, disability, marital status or migrant or refugee status can exacerbate the consequences of gender-based cyberviolence; whereas the Union’s LGBTIQ Equality Strategy recalls that everyone has a right to safety, be it at home, in public or online;

E.

whereas the Union’s LGBTIQ Survey II conducted by FRA shows that 10 % of LGBTIQ people had experienced cyberharassment due to being LGBTIQ in the year prior to the survey, including on social media; whereas intersex and trans people are over-proportionally affected (16 %); whereas teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 were the group that most experienced cyberharassment due to being LGBTIQ (15 %), compared with other age groups (7 %-12 %);

F.

whereas violence against women and girls in all their diversity and gender-based violence present different but not mutually exclusive forms and manifestations; whereas online violence is often interlinked with, and inseparable from offline violence because the former can precede, accompany or continue the latter; whereas gender-based cyberviolence should therefore be understood as a continuum of offline gender-based violence in the online environment;

G.

whereas the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) study entitled ‘Combating gender-based violence: Cyber violence — European added value assessment’ on gender-based cyberviolence estimates that 4 to 7 % of women in the Union have experienced cyberharassment during the 12 months prior to the assessment, while between 1 and 3 % have experienced cyberstalking; whereas cyberstalking takes multiple forms and is the most common form of sole or combined hate speech and has for too long been unrecognised and unacted upon; whereas the World Wide Web Foundation survey conducted in 2020 among respondents from 180 countries revealed that 52 % of young women and girls have experienced online abuse such as the sharing of private images, videos or messages without their consent, mean and humiliating messages, abusive and threatening language, sexual harassment and false content, and 64 % of respondents stated that they know someone who has experienced it;

H.

whereas young women and girls are at a greater risk of encountering cyberviolence, particularly cyberharassment and cyberbullying; whereas at least 12,5 % of school bullying cases are online (23); whereas young people are now increasingly connected to social networks at an earlier age; whereas those forms of violence reinforce the weight of social inequalities because it is often the most disadvantaged young people who are the target; whereas according to UNICEF, girls are harassed twice as much as boys (24); whereas, according to that survey, women are more sceptical with regard to tech companies using their data responsibly;

I.

whereas in 2014, according to the report of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) of 3 March 2014 entitled ‘Violence against women: an EU-wide survey’, 11 % of women had experienced cyberharassment and 14 % had experienced stalking since the age of 15 in the Union;

J.

whereas internet connectivity and the need to access the digital public sphere are becoming increasingly necessary for the development of our societies and economies; whereas jobs increasingly involve and become dependent on the digital solutions leading to an increasing risk of women encountering gender-based cyberviolence when engaging in the labour market and economic activity;

K.

whereas the increasing reach of the internet, the rapid spread of mobile information, and the use of social media, coupled with the continuum of multiple, recurring and interrelated forms of gender-based violence, has led to the proliferation of gender-based cyberviolence; whereas women and girls who have access to the internet face online violence more often than men; whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences noted that new technologies ‘will inevitably give rise to different and new manifestations of online violence against women’; whereas innovation happens at a pace that often does not allow for reflecting on its long-term consequences and the prevalence of gender-based cyberviolence is likely to continue to rise in the coming years; whereas there is a need to adequately assess the impact of gender-based cyberviolence on victims and to understand the mechanisms that allow perpetrators of that form of gender-based violence to perpetrate violence in order to ensure redress, accountability and prevention;

L.

whereas, according to the World Health Organization (25), one in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence mostly by an intimate partner; whereas gender-based violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have aggravated the risk of domestic violence and abuse; whereas the greater use of the internet during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased online and ICT-facilitated gender-based violence, since abusive partners and ex-partners also monitor, track and threaten their victims and perpetrate violence with digital tools; whereas that cyberviolence can coincide with and escalate to physical violence if not addressed early on; whereas in the EU Strategy on Victims' Rights (2020-2025), the Commission acknowledges that the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic has occasioned an increase in cybercrimes, such as online sexual offences and hate crime;

M.

whereas the most common types of gender-based cyberviolence are crimes such as cyber harassment, cyberstalking, ICT-related violation of privacy, including the accessing, taking, recording, sharing and creation and manipulation of data or images, including intimate data, without consent, identity theft and online hate speech, coercive control by means of digital surveillance and control of communications via stalkerware and spyware apps, and the use of technological means for trafficking in human beings, including for the purposes of sexual exploitation;

N.

whereas gender-based cyberviolence can be perpetrated using a range of online communication channels and tools, including social media, web content, discussion sites, dating websites, comment sections, and gaming chat rooms; whereas many types of gender-based cyberviolence can be perpetrated with far greater ease and scale than physical forms of gender-based violence;

O.

whereas some Member States have adopted laws on only some specific forms of gender-based cyberviolence and, therefore, significant gaps remain; whereas there is currently no common definition or effective policy approach to combating gender-based cyberviolence at Union level; whereas such an absence of a harmonised definition at Union level leads to significant differences as to the extent to which Member States combat and prevent gender-based cyberviolence, leaving wide disparities and fragmentation in the level of protection afforded by them, despite the cross-border nature of the crime; whereas a harmonised legal definition of gender-based cyberviolence is therefore needed in order to ensure convergence both at national and Union levels;

P.

whereas, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the definition of ‘online violence against women’ extends to any act of gender-based violence against women that is committed, assisted or aggravated in part or fully by the use of ICT, such as mobile phones and smartphones, the internet, social media platforms or email, against a woman because she is a woman, or affects women disproportionately (26);

Q.

whereas criminalising gender-based cyberviolence could have a deterrent effect on perpetrators due to the fear of penalties or the awareness that they are committing a crime;

R.

new forms are emerging due to the rapid development and use of digital technologies and applications; whereas those different forms of gender-based cyberviolence and online harassment target all age groups, from early ages, to school and professional life, to later years; whereas the potential for violence in the cyber-sphere to manifest psychically should also not be discounted;

S.

whereas, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), seven out of 10 women have experienced cyberstalking; whereas stalkerware is a software facilitating abuse by allowing a person’s device to be monitored without their consent and without making the monitoring activity known to the owner of the device and while the software stays hidden; whereas stalkerware is legally available for use and purchase in the Union, often marketed as parental control software;

T.

whereas image-based sexual abuse is often weaponised to harass and humiliate victims; whereas ‘deepfakes’ are a relatively new way to deploy gender-based violence, harnessing artificial intelligence to exploit, humiliate and harass women;

U.

whereas image-based sexual abuse and websites on which such abuse is disseminated is a growing form of intimate partner violence; whereas the consequences of image-based-sexual abuse can be sexual, in that the sexual encounter was recorded or disseminated without consent, psychological, as regards the impact on victims of having their private life become public, and economic, in that the image-based sexual abuse may potentially compromise the present and future professional life of victims;

V.

whereas there is an increased risk that non-consensual intimate and sexual videos of women are disseminated on pornography websites and that they are disseminated for a monetary benefit; whereas the online dissemination of private content without the consent of the victim and, particularly, of sexual abuse brings an additional traumatic element to violence, often with dramatic consequences, including suicide;

W.

whereas young women, and girls in particular, are subjected to gender-based cyberviolence involving the use of new technologies, including cyberharassment and cyberstalking by means of rape threats, death threats, ICT-related violations of privacy, and the publication of private information and photos;

X.

whereas, at present, 15 Member States do not include gender identity in hate speech law; whereas the Commission has committed in the Union’s 2020-2025 Gender Equality Strategy and in 2020-2025 LGBTIQ Equality Strategy to present an initiative with a view to extending the areas of crime where harmonisation is possible to include specific forms of gender-based violence in accordance with Article 83(1) TFEU;

Y.

whereas the statistics mentioned in this resolution show that hate speech against LGBTIQ people is pervasively common, in particular online, and there is a notable absence of laws in some Member States to prevent, address and penalise such forms of online abuse;

Z.

whereas in 2017 the Union signed the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the ‘Istanbul Convention’), which remains the benchmark for international standards for the eradication of gender-based violence, and concluding the Union’s accession to that Convention is a key priority for the Commission;

AA.

whereas, in order to end gender-based violence, including gender-based cyberviolence, it is necessary to rely on consistent, tangible, representative and comparable administrative data, based on a robust and coordinated framework of data collection; whereas there is a lack of comprehensive and comparable disaggregated data on all forms of gender-based violence and its root causes; whereas despite a growing awareness of that phenomenon, the lack of data collection on all forms of gender-based violence prevents an accurate assessment of its prevalence; whereas such lack of available data is linked to the underreporting of cases of gender-based cyberviolence; whereas the Istanbul Convention and Directive 2012/29/EU require Member States to report statistical data and to produce gender-disaggregated data;

AB.

whereas the criminal justice response to victims of gender-based cyberviolence is still lagging behind, demonstrating a lack of understanding and awareness of the seriousness of those offences and discouraging reporting in many Member States; whereas equipping police officers with the soft skills to carefully listen, understand and respect all victims of all forms of gender-based violence can help to address underreporting and re-victimisation; whereas ensuring accessible reporting procedures and mechanisms, as well as remedies, is indispensable to promoting a safer environment for all victims of gender-based violence; whereas information should be available for victims of cyberviolence as regards how and whom to contact in law enforcement services as well as regards the available remedies to help them through distressing situations’;

AC.

whereas the Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, Eurojust and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) have conducted research on online cybercrime; whereas some women and LGBTIQ people such as feminist and LGBTIQ activists, artists, politicians, women in public positions, journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and other public figures, are particularly impacted by gender-based cyberviolence, and whereas this causes them not only reputational damage, psychological harm and suffering but can also lead to disruption to a victim’s living situation, invasions of privacy and damage to personal relationships and family lives and can deter victims from participating digitally in political, social, economic and cultural life;

AD.

whereas gender-based cyberviolence often leads to self-censorship and that situation can have a detrimental impact on the professional lives and reputations of victims of gender-based cyberviolence; whereas the violent and gendered nature of the threats means that victims often resort to the use of pseudonyms, maintain low online profiles, decide to suspend, deactivate or permanently delete their online accounts, or even to leave their profession entirely; whereas that can silence female voices and opinions and worsen an already present gender inequality in political, social and cultural life; whereas the growing gender-based cyberviolence faced by women can prevent them from further participating in the digital sector itself, thereby solidifying gender-biased conception, development, and implementation of new technologies and causing the replication of existing discriminatory practices and stereotypes contributing to the normalisation of gender-based cyberviolence;

AE.

whereas gender-based cyberviolence has a direct impact on women's sexual, physical and psychological health and well-being and has a negative social and economic impact; whereas gender-based cyberviolence negatively impacts the ability of victims to fully exercise their fundamental rights, which, therefore, has dire consequences for society and democracy as a whole;

AF.

whereas the detrimental economic impact of gender-based violence and the mental health issues it causes can have a severe impact on victims, including their ability to seek employment, and can cause financial burden; whereas the economic impact of gender-based violence can include an impact on employment, such as lower presence at work, a risk of employment status being compromised, inducing a risk of job loss or lower productivity; whereas the mental health impact of gender-based cyberviolence can be complex and long term; whereas the mental health impact of gender-based cyberviolence, such as anxiety, depression and ongoing symptoms of post-trauma, has detrimental interpersonal, social, legal, economic and political implications and ultimately affects young people’s livelihood and identity; whereas some of those impacts compound other forms of discrimination, exacerbating existing forms of discrimination and inequalities;

AG.

whereas according to the EPRS study entitled ‘Combating gender-based violence: Cyber violence — European added value assessment’ the overall costs of cyberharassment and cyberstalking are estimated at between EUR 49 and 89,3 billion, with the largest cost category being the value of the loss in terms of quality of life, which accounted for more than half of the overall costs (about 60 % for cyberharassment and about 50 % for cyberstalking);

AH.

whereas prevention, especially through education, including digital literacy and skills such as cyber hygiene and netiquette, must be a key element of any public policy aimed at tackling gender-based cyberviolence;

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