The Newest Gender-Based Violence

"While there has been progress in understanding and treating domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of interpersonal trauma, one growing form of harm remains largely overlooked: digital abuse and harassment. As a psychotherapist who has worked with women survivors of childhood sexual abuse for over two decades, I am hearing a new theme brought into sessions: how technology is being weaponized in the hands of abusers."

"According to the research organization Data & Society, 12 percent of adults who have had a romantic partner have experienced some type of digital harassment or abuse by that partner, and the rates are nearly twice as high for younger women and three times higher for LGBTQ+ folks. Additionally, the National Network to End Domestic Violence reports that about three-quarters of survivors looking for help from domestic-violence programs have experienced digital abuse."

Technology is being weaponized by abusers who monitor phones, track locations, post or threaten to post intimate photos, and humiliate victims publicly online. Such digital harassment has become common across intimate-partner contexts and is no longer rare or unique. Research finds 12 percent of adults with romantic partners experienced partner-perpetrated digital abuse, with rates nearly twice as high for younger women and three times higher for LGBTQ+ people. About three-quarters of survivors seeking domestic-violence services report digital abuse. The internet is also the most common recruitment venue in U.S. federal sex-trafficking cases, accounting for about 40 percent of cases. Technology can isolate, control, and harm.

Read at Psychology Today