The sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls, in both physical and digital spaces, is on a disturbing upward trajectory. Recent statistics from the UN show that sex trafficking remains the most prevalent form of human trafficking globally, and that it disproportionately and increasingly affects women and girls. Perpetrators are exploiting the limited regulation and borderless nature of the internet to commit sex trafficking, sexual harassment, ‘sextortion’, and emerging forms of online sexual exploitation such as deepfake imagery, image-based sexual abuse, and doxing, with increasing impunity.
Sexual exploitation occurs when someone abuses another person’s vulnerability or their own position of power or trust for sexual purposes. It can happen:
It can also involve other crimes linked to organized crime, such as illicit financial transactions and immigration offenses.
Sexual exploitation is rooted in sex and gender inequality and discrimination and affects women and girls across every region of the world.
International human rights law protects a person’s right to be free from all forms of exploitation, yet governments are failing to uphold this right for millions of women and girls around the world.
We recognize that sexual exploitation is a complex issue and acknowledge that as part of a hugely diverse gender equality movement, we will not always agree with others on the best approach to addressing it. We remain committed to engaging with integrity and respect while always keeping the well-being of survivors at the center of any intervention.
We combine international advocacy with regional and national campaigns to address the systemic and socio-cultural drivers of sexual exploitation and its manifestations in physical and digital spaces.
We frame sexual exploitation as a form of gender-based violence grounded in systemic sex and gender inequality and discrimination, further compounded by other intersecting forms of discrimination such as race, ethnicity, disability, migrant status, and sexual orientation. Our legal and policy expertise supports the creation of strong frameworks that address legal inequality, and hold perpetrators of exploitation and tech-facilitated gender based violence accountable.
Whereas violence in the digital space is often treated as separate from the “real” world, at Equality Now, we understand it as part of the system of gender based violence. The lived experiences of women and girls demonstrate that the violence they encounter in digital and online interactions has tangible impacts across all areas of their lives, highlighting the continuum of violence in public and private and physical and digital spaces.
We co-founded the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights(AUDRi) in 2023. At global and regional levels, we work with governments, tech companies, and grassroots movements to ensure universal digital rights for all people, particularly women and girls and people from discriminated-against groups, and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.
From the UN Palermo Protocol in 2001 to national anti-trafficking laws, we have contributed to legal reforms that protect survivors of these crimes and criminalize all forms of sexual exploitation. Using an ecosystem approach that recognizes the range of laws that require reform, we continue to push for accountability and legal systems that address sexual exploitation and abuse in both physical and digital spaces.
Explore how we address sexual exploitation across contexts
