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As the means and harms of technology-facilitated violence have become more evident, some governments have taken steps to create or empower centralized bodies with statutory mandates as part of an effort to combat it. This chapter argues that these bodies have the potential to meaningfully further a survivor-centered approach to combatting technology-facilitated violence against women – one that places their experiences, rights, wishes, and needs at its core. It further argues that governments should consider integrating them into a broader holistic response to this conduct.

An overview is provided of the operations of New Zealand's Netsafe, the eSafety Commissioner in Australia, Nova Scotia's Cyberscan Unit, and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in Manitoba. These types of centralized bodies have demonstrated an ability to advance survivor-centered approaches to technology-facilitated violence against women through direct involvement in resolving instances of violence, education, and research. However, these bodies are not a panacea. This chapter outlines critiques of their operations and the challenges they face in maximizing their effectiveness.

Notwithstanding these challenges and critiques, governments should consider creating such bodies or empowering existing bodies with a statutory mandate as one aspect of a broader response to combatting technology-facilitated violence against women. Some proposed best practices to maximize their effectiveness are identified.

When discussing the term “technology-facilitated violence” (TFV) it is often asked: “Is it actually violence?” While international human rights standards, such as the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (United Nations General Assembly, 1979), have long recognized emotional and psychological abuse as forms of violence, including many forms of technology-facilitated abuse (United Nations, 2018), law makers and the general public continue to grapple with the question of whether certain harmful technology-facilitated behaviors are actually forms of violence. This chapter explores this question in two parts. First, it reviews three theoretical concepts of violence and examines how these concepts apply to technology-facilitated behaviors. In doing so, this chapter aims to demonstrate how some harmful technology-facilitated behaviors fit under the greater conceptual umbrella of violence. Second, it examines two recent cases, one from the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) in Canada and a Romanian case from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), that received attention for their legal determinations on whether to define harmful technology-facilitated behaviors as forms of violence or not. This chapter concludes with observations on why we should conceptualize certain technology-facilitated behaviors as forms of violence.

As the role and uptake of digital media, devices and other technologies increases, so has their presence in our lives. Technology has revolutionised the speed, type and extent of communication and contact between individuals and groups, transforming temporal, geographic and personal boundaries. There have undoubtedly been benefits associated with such shifts, but technologies have also exacerbated existing patterns of gendered violence and introduced new forms of intrusion, abuse and surveillance. In order to understand and combat harm and, protect and empower women, criminologists must investigate these practices. This chapter discusses how technology has transformed the enactment of violence against women.

Typically, studies have focussed on particular types of technology-facilitated violence as isolated phenomenon. Here, the author examines, more holistically, a range of digital perpetration: by persons unknown, who may be known and are known to female targets. These digital harms should, the author contends, be viewed as part of what Kelly (1988) conceptualised as a ‘continuum of violence’ (and Stanko, 1985 as ‘continuums of unsafety’) to which women are exposed, throughout the course of our lives. These behaviours do not occur in a vacuum. Violence is the cause and effect of inequalities and social control, which manifests structurally and institutionally, offline and online. Technologies are shaped by these forces, and investigating the creation, governance and use of technologies provides insight how violence is enacted, fostered and normalised.

While digital technologies have led to many important social and cultural advances worldwide, they also facilitate the perpetration of violence, abuse and harassment, known as technology-facilitated violence and abuse (TFVA). TFVA includes a spectrum of behaviors perpetrated online, offline, and through a range of technologies, including artificial intelligence, livestreaming, GPS tracking, and social media. This chapter provides an overview of TFVA, including a brief snapshot of existing quantitative and qualitative research relating to various forms of TFVA. It then discusses the aims and contributions of this book as a whole, before outlining five overarching themes arising from the contributions. The chapter concludes by mapping out the structure of the book.

While research on digital dangers has been growing, studies on their respective solutions and justice responses have not kept pace. The agathokakological nature of technology demands that we pay attention to not only harms associated with interconnectivity, but also the potential for technology to counter offenses and “do good.” This chapter discusses technology as both a weapon and a shield when it comes to violence against women and girls in public spaces and private places. First, we review the complex and varied manifestations of technological gender violence, ranging from the use of technology to exploit, harass, stalk, and otherwise harm women and girls in communal spaces, to offenses that occur behind closed doors. Second, we discuss justice-related responses, underscoring how women and girls have “flipped the script” when their needs are not met. By developing innovative ways to respond to the wrongs committed against them and creating alternate systems that offer a voice, victims/survivors have repurposed technology to redress harms and unite in solidarity with others in an ongoing quest for justice.

Polyvictimization means looking at multiple victimizations of different kinds that one person has experienced. Virtually, all of the work in this field focuses on the effects of childhood trauma and victimization on currently distressed children, and empirical and theoretical work on the intertwining of adult female offline and online abuse experiences is in short supply. Recently, however, some scholars are starting to fill these research gaps by generating data showing that technology-facilitated violence and abuse are part and parcel of women's polyvictimization experiences at institutions of higher education. This chapter provides an in-depth review of the extant social scientific literature on the role technology-facilitated violence and abuse plays in the polyvictimization of female college/university students. In addition to proposing new ways of knowing, we suggest progressive policies and practices aimed at preventing polyvictimization on the college campus.

Goal 5 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) prioritises gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls. Key to achieving this is addressing violence against women (VAW; see SDG target 5.2) and, we believe, understanding the role of technology in both enacting and combating VAW. In this chapter, we outline how technology-facilitated VAW threatens women's use of technology and discuss policies and practices of support workers and practitioners that aid safe use of digital media. We consider features of technology-facilitated VAW advocacy which differ from traditional VAW advocacy, using examples from the Global North and South. Information communication technologies (ICTs) are used by VAW advocates in a range of ways; to provide information and education about domestic violence, safe use of technology and negotiating the legal and criminal justice systems; collect evidence about abuse; provide support; and pursue social change. As the capabilities and prevalence of ICT and devices increase and access costs decrease, these channels offer new and innovative opportunities capitalising on the spacelessness, cost-effectiveness and timelessness of media. Nonetheless, technological initiatives are not perfect or failsafe. Throughout the pages that follow, we acknowledge the limitations and challenges of technology-facilitated advocacy, which could hinder application of the SDG.

This chapter examines technology-facilitated violence from the perspective of international human rights law. It explores current research relating to technology-facilitated violence and then highlights the international human rights instruments that are triggered by the various forms of such violence. Ultimately, it focuses upon international human rights to privacy and to freedom from violence (especially gender-based violence) and the obligations on State and Nonstate actors to address violations of these rights. It argues that adoption of a human rights perspective on technology-facilitated violence better enables us to hold State and Nonstate actors to account in finding meaningful ways to address violence in all of its forms.

Technology-facilitated violence and abuse is a truly global problem. As the diverse perspectives and experiences featured in this book have shown, the deep entanglement between technologies, inequality, marginalization, abuse, and violence require multi-faceted and collaborative responses that exist within and beyond the law. When this chapter was written, society was (and continues to be) facing an unprecedented challenge in COVID-19 – a global pandemic. At the same time, a renewed focus on racist police and civilian violence has occurred following the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor in the United States. As we describe in this chapter, these two major moments are ongoing reminders of the profound social inequalities within our global communities, which are grounded in systemically discriminatory oppressions and their intersections. This chapter draws together some thoughts on technology-facilitated violence and abuse in an era of COVID-19 and antiracist protest. It explores these within the context of the book as a whole, highlighting the importance for improved understanding of, and responses to, technology-facilitated violence and abuse as part of a broader push for social justice.

Technology-facilitated violence against women (TFVW) is readily becoming a key site of analysis for feminist criminologists. The scholarship in this area has identified online sexual harassment, contact-based harassment, image-based abuse, and gender-based cyberhate – among others – as key manifestations of TFVW. It has also unpacked the legal strategies available to women seeking formal justice outcomes. However, much of the existing empirical scholarship has been produced within countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and there has been limited research on this phenomenon within South East Asia. As such, this chapter maps how technology is shaping Singaporean women's experiences of gendered, sexual, and domestic violence. To do so, it draws upon findings from a research project which examined TFVW in Singapore by utilizing semistructured interviews with frontline workers in the fields of domestic and sexual violence and LGBT services. Drawing from Dragiewicz et al.’s (2018) work on technology-facilitated coercive control (TFCC), I argue that victims-survivors of dating, domestic, and family violence need to be provided with support that is TFCC informed and technically guided. I also suggest that further research is needed to fully understand the prevalence and nature of TFVW in the Singaporean context.