🗯️Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV)

Online gender-based violence (OGBV) or technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TGBV) encompasses any form of gender-based harm that is facilitated, aided, or exacerbated through the use of information and communication technology (ICT), including mobile phones, the Internet, social media platforms, or email. This harm is directed at a person due to their identity. OGBV, in many cases, is part of a range of violence experienced by a person across various spaces. Violence that begins in online spaces can spill over into offline spaces, or vice versa. Perpetrators of OGBV are diverse and can range from family members, partners or former partners, to strangers.

LGBTQIA+ people experience a higher frequency and broader spectrum of online gender-based violence exacerbated by an already hostile online space. A 2023 election monitoring report that observed hate speech in relation to four thematic areas or specific vulnerable groups - race, religion, gender and LGBTQIA+ (or SOGIESC), and refugees - revealed that offensive speech related to gender and LGBTQIA+ topics was twice as common as that related to race and religion.

Against this backdrop, LGBTQIA+ people have reported doxxing, mobbing, sexual harassment and violence, non-consensual sharing of explicit images, reporting of LGBTQIA+ people by tagging state agencies, catfishing, blackmail, death threats. In the absence of legal gender recognition for trans, intersex, and non-binary people, they are particularly vulnerable to doxxing of their personal information, such as their legal documents to expose their gender identity.

In many cases of OGBV, LGBTQIA+ people lack redress options, resulting in their self-censorship, and isolation, among other adverse effects.