In its first General Recommendation, formalised on Thursday, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on combating violence against women and domestic violence (GREVIO) has defined and framed the digital dimension of such violence. The publication comes on the eve of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls, which will itself focus on digital technology.
The rapid development of information technology and communication tools is opening up new avenues for such violence, noted GREVIO, highlighting new modes of online harassment and attacks that have been facilitated by legally obtained tracking apps. However, they deplore the fact that national legislation is still too weak to deal with it.
It is in this sense that the Council of Europe’s experts have drawn up this Recommendation, which defines such digital violence as an expression of gender-based violence as covered by the “Istanbul Convention”.
This aim of this new text is to provide Member States with an interpretation of the Convention that allows it to be used in combating the digital dimension of violence against women and domestic violence.
Specific measures include: reviewing legislation, combating gender stereotypes, including digital and online safety in school curricula, providing information about remedies and support, training law enforcement officers, publishing criminal justice reports on digital violence, collecting specific data and involving Internet intermediaries.
Arnaud Dechoux, head of ‘Europe’ at Kaspersky (an international cybersecurity company), said that “the Council of Europe is the first to deal in depth with the subject of digital violence”.
Link to the Recommendation: https://bit.ly/3p0cyZG (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)