Safer Internet Day is a global moment to reflect on how digital spaces shape our lives and to demand an internet that is safe, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.
While digital technologies have transformed how we communicate, learn, and organise, they have also created new pathways for harm. For women and girls in particular, online spaces are increasingly sites of violence, exploitation, and abuse. Safer Internet Day is an opportunity to name those harms, centre survivor experiences, and call for urgent action to make online spaces safe for everyone.
At Equality Now, Safer Internet Day is about confronting one of the most pervasive and under-addressed threats to women’s and girls’ rights in the digital age: online sexual exploitation and abuse (OSEA).
Online sexual exploitation and abuse is a core manifestation of tech-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) — violence that is committed, assisted, aggravated, or amplified through digital technologies and information and communication tools.
OSEA encompasses a wide range of abusive and exploitative behaviours, including:
Although these abuses occur online, their impacts are profoundly real. Survivors experience violations of privacy, dignity, and bodily autonomy, alongside deep psychological harm, reputational damage, economic loss, and exclusion from public life. Many are forced to withdraw from digital spaces altogether, deepening the digital divide and reinforcing the message that women and girls are not safe anywhere.
Women and girls are disproportionately targeted because these abuses exploit existing gender inequality, misogyny, and economic vulnerability. Harm is compounded for those facing intersecting forms of discrimination.
Ending OSEA requires an intersectional response that recognises both the digital tactics used and the real-world harms they cause.
Technological advances have dramatically expanded the scale, speed, and severity of online sexual exploitation and abuse.
Predators increasingly use social media platforms, messaging apps, and online gaming spaces to groom and exploit victims, taking advantage of anonymity, weak moderation, and limited regulation. These harms are not accidental byproducts of innovation, they are foreseeable risks enabled by design choices that prioritize growth and profit over safety.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has further intensified these threats. AI-powered tools are being misused to create sexually explicit deepfake images, “nudifying” apps, and other forms of image-based abuse at unprecedented scale. Without robust human rights safeguards, algorithms and machine-learning systems can replicate and amplify misogyny, racism, and other forms of discrimination.
At the same time, algorithm-driven behavioural targeting is drawing some users, particularly young men, toward increasingly violent misogynistic content and ideologies, fueling gender-based violence both online and offline.
Despite the scale of the harm, laws and protections have not kept pace. Survivors are often left without effective remedies, while platforms continue to operate with limited accountability.
Online sexual exploitation and abuse is a global, gendered, and cross-border problem that no single law, platform, or country can solve alone. Ending OSEA requires coordinated action across governments, technology companies, and the international community.
Governments must develop and adopt clear, legally binding international standards addressing tech-facilitated gender-based violence, including OSEA. Existing international and regional laws need to be updated to reflect the realities of the digital age, while national legislation must be strengthened to close legal gaps, provide criminal and civil remedies, and ensure survivor-centred justice.
Digital service providers must be held legally accountable for preventing, detecting, and responding to sexual exploitation and abuse on their platforms. Safety-by-design principles should be embedded throughout the entire technology lifecycle, from development to deployment and moderation, rather than added after harm occurs. Platforms must also enable effective reporting, act swiftly to remove harmful content, preserve evidence, and cooperate with legal processes.
Freedom of expression and privacy are essential to a functioning internet, but they do not justify harm. Online abuse is routinely used to silence women and girls, undermining their participation and expression. International human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), provides a clear framework for balancing these rights through lawful, legitimate, and proportionate measures that protect users from harm while safeguarding fundamental freedoms.
Survivors must have access to comprehensive support, including counselling, legal assistance, and help with content removal. Ending OSEA also requires confronting the misogyny and entitlement that drive online abuse, and ensuring survivors and affected communities are meaningfully consulted in the development of laws, policies, and technologies.
Equality Now works globally to end online sexual exploitation and abuse by combining legal expertise, survivor-centred advocacy, and international campaigning.
Our work includes:
Equality Now is also a founding member of the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), working to ensure digital governance frameworks protect freedom of expression and privacy while safeguarding women and girls from online harm.
Safer Internet Day is not just about awareness, it is about action. A safer internet is possible, but only if governments, technology companies, and the international community act decisively to protect women and girls from harm.