98% of domestic violence workers say clients have experienced online VAW

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In a national survey of domestic and family violence workers, 98% of the 546 participants reported that their clients had experienced technology-facilitated stalking and abuse.

Equally disturbing are rapidly emerging forms of misogynistic cyberhate. Women, it seems, are subjected to threatening, aggressive and violent speech for no other reason that being “women on the internet”.

Federal MP Tim Watts spoke in parliament on Monday about the ways in which new technologies are being used to stalk, intimidate, threaten and harass women.

This abuse, he suggests, often happens in domestic violence situations. It is also happening in new ways, such as via “revenge pornography”, to which our current laws are unable to respond effectively.

This comes in light of a growing recognition of the ways communications technologies are used to perpetrate violence against women.