International Women’s Day and a focus on online abuse
Less than half of countries have laws that address online abuse. Even fewer have legislation that specifically covers AI-generated deepfake content. Despite the scale of harm, prosecutions are rare, platforms routinely fail to act, and survivors are often re-traumatized when they try to seek help, UN Women says in a report published shortly prior to the International Women’s Day on March 8.
European Institute for Gender Equality says that digitalisation is intensifying abuse: 8.5% of EU women have been cyberstalked and 7% of working women were harassed sexually online. 10.2% had their location monitored or tracked by their intimate partner.
UN Women notes that most “revenge porn” or image-based abuse laws were written before deepfakes existed, “leaving gaping loopholes that perpetrators walk straight through”.
“In many countries, deepfake porn or AI-generated nude images fall into legal grey areas, leaving survivors unsure whether the abuse is even illegal and whether perpetrators can be prosecuted.”
“Even when laws exist, enforcement frequently fails. Investigators need digital forensics expertise, cross-border coordination, and platform cooperation to build a case, and most justice systems don’t have adequate resources for any of these.”
UN Women says that underreporting is one of the biggest barriers to accountability, “and it’s not hard to understand why survivors stay silent”.
“For women survivors, reporting deepfake abuse means showing their artificially sexualized images to police officers, lawyers, and platform moderators. It means having their names on official records, risking media attention, and potentially facing defamation lawsuits from the very people who abused them.”
“Tech platforms have long hidden behind “intermediary” status to avoid responsibility for user-generated content. In practice, this means platforms that are slow to remove abusive content, have opaque and inconsistent reporting processes, give automated rejection of takedown requests, and little to no cooperation with law enforcement.”
And the harm doesn’t stay online, UN Women says, referring to a survey showing that 41% of women in public life who experienced digital violence also reported facing offline attacks or harassment linked to it.
UN Women’s requests:
- Governments must pass legislation with clear definitions of AI-generated abuse and focusing on consent, strict liability for perpetrators, fast-track removal obligations for platforms, and cross-border enforcement protocols — because abuse doesn’t respect national borders.
- Digital forensics backlogs must be addressed, and international cooperation frameworks must be fast, functional, and fit for purpose.
- Tech companies must be legally required to proactively monitor for and remove abusive content within mandatory timelines, cooperate with law enforcement, and face real financial consequences when they fail to act. Self-regulation has not worked.
- Trained, trauma-informed law enforcement and legal professionals, and free legal aid, so that reporting processes do not revictimize the people they’re meant to help, and accessing justice doesn’t become impossibly costly.
- Digital literacy, including consent education, online safety, and what to do when experiencing abuse, needs to start young and reach everyone.
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