Marion Bethel | The digital paradox

The digital world is evolving at extraordinary speed, offering transformative power to improve women’s live in areas such as health, where digital platforms and mobile applications are expanding women’s access to information, services and care, even in remote areas.

In education, large-scale public initiatives across the region have used universal device distribution and connectivity to close the digital divide. And in matters of security, technology has enabled survivors of gender-based violence to seek help through mobile apps and public panic buttons for faster response and protection.

However, this same innovation has created a new domain where discrimination and violence against women persist. What was meant to connect us has, in many cases, been used to intimidate and silence. In our region, at least 73 per cent of women have experienced some form of online violence, ranging from cyberstalking and doxxing to the non-consensual sharing of AI-generated sexual content. Much of this abuse takes place on privately owned platforms like social media companies, messaging services, dating apps, and websites where data is not always accessible.

PUSHES WOMEN OUT

This context creates an environment that effectively pushes women out of digital spaces, sending a powerful message: women do not belong here. This exclusion hinders their equal participation and the exercise of their fundamental rights.

Faced with this reality, our institutions must keep pace by applying established Inter-American standards to ensure a life free from violence in the digital sphere. This requires three key pillars of immediate action:

First, it is urgent to update and harmonise legal frameworks to prevent, investigate, and punish digital gender-based violence in all its forms. States must recognise that the digital sphere is not a neutral space; girls, women with disabilities, indigenous, and Afro descendant women, and LBTI persons face intersecting inequalities and heightened risks that must be addressed in every public policy.

Second, the judiciary must account for the specific ways online aggression affects women when assessing digital harm by applying a gender perspective to the analysis. Even when laws are drafted in gender-neutral terms, judicial operators must recognize the unique nature of these attacks to ensure that legal protections truly safeguard women.

Third, under the Convention of Belém do Pará, the duty of due diligence requires the implementation of simple, swift, and accessible judicial remedies. These mechanisms must provide timely protection to prevent further harm and safeguard women from revictimization, both online and offline.

Ultimately, the success of digital transformation lies not only in innovation but in its capacity to be inclusive. The success of technological progress is not measured by its sophistication but by its ability to guarantee a safe environment where all women, in all their diversity, can participate and thrive.

Commissioner Marion Bethel is rapporteur on the rights of women at the IACHR. A practising attorney, her legal work focuses on gender equality, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive rights, the care economy, and the abolition of the death penalty. Send feedback to cidh-prensa@oas.org.