UN Women Europe’s director tells Euronews that digital violence must be treated as real harm, urging stronger global protections against online abuse.
The chief of the United Nations division for women in Europe and Central Asia cautioned Euronews about an increasingly unfriendly atmosphere for young girls and women, stating that online hatred against women is growing and intensifying gender tensions in real-life circumstances.
“Digital violence is real violence”,
Belén Sanz, Director for UN Women for Europe and Central Asia, told Euronews.
“Women and girls experience it, and it has tremendous consequences because it takes out the voice of women, their rights, and their choices”,
she added.
A 2021 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 74% of European women have either personally experienced or witnessed online abuse against another woman.
“It is critical that there is a regulation about the development and the use of artificial intelligence and digital technologies”,
said
Sanz, adding that it is also important to ensure that people, especially young
boys and girls, can discern the information that they receive.
Deepfake pornography, which exploits women's faces to mimic sexual actions without concurrence, is one of the most dangerous types of internet abuse.
In response, the UN's periodic" 16 Days of Activism against Gender- Grounded Violence" crusade aims to annihilate digital violence against all women and girls. On Tuesday, the crusade will be launched encyclopedically.
The chance of women aged 18 to 74 who have been victims of gender- grounded violence has not dropped between 2014 and 2024, falling by less than one chance point in 10 times( from 31.4 to 30.7) and demonstrating pervasive sexist conduct.
She did, however, issue a warning about a recent political and societal reaction that is directly impacting how society views women's advancement due to the spread of false information.
“We are seeing younger generations of men questioning gender equality as if the needle has gone too far for women and as if that puts men in a risky situation,"
Sanz said.
According to a 2025 poll of over 24,000 individualities in 30 nations, 57 of Gen Z men and 56 of millennial men believed their nation had" gone too far in promoting women's equivalency."
The UN director refocused that this view is a reflection of larger socioeconomic issues, similar as job access and profitable insecurity, rather than inescapably being connected to factual growth.
The majority of violence against women occurs in public settings. Women's involvement in public life is also impacted by discussions about gender equality laws and women's roles.
Over the ten years, there has been a gradational growth in the representation of women in politics. Women made up 33.4 of public congress seats in the EU in 2024, an increase of about 9 chance points from 2010.
Women in public service positions face disproportionately high rates of violence in addition to the conventional obstacles that help them from entering politics, similar as gender conceptions about political liabilities and challenges with work- life balance.
According to data from the Council of European cosmopolises and Regions, around one in three women in politics in Europe report suffering cyberviolence, which includes pitfalls, importunity, and abuse on digital platforms. roughly 32 of women in politics report passing violence.
“A strong democracy is one where we have more women in decision-making positions”,
Sanz argued.
"To achieve that, we need to ensure they are protected, as everyone should be protected when they are exercising the right to participate in public life".
What legal protections are currently missing for digital violence in Europe?
The Digital Services Act( DSA) draft lacks sufficient measures to cover victims effectively, especially regarding quick junking of dangerous or illegal content on platforms. Victims struggle to apply rights as platforms prioritize keeping content for business earnings, causing prolonged detriment.
Judicial requital is frequently precious, slow, and inapproachable, with court proceedings occasionally lasting over a time and costs prohibitive for numerous victims. Jurisdictional clarity is lacking, with confusion over which public laws apply incross-border digital violence cases.
Calls by groups like HateAid and EU suggest tanks prompt briskly perpetration of victim- centered laws, better platform responsibility, simpler access to justice, and more coherent regulation to close current legal protection gaps for digital violence victims in Europe.