The association Opciónate starts the project ‘Gender-based cyber-violence: an analysis of the current situation in Gran Canaria´. With the support of the Department of Gender Equality of the Cabildo, it will include the analysis of cases, consequences and existing resources.
The association Opciónate has initiated the participatory study of the impact and existing resources to prevent, identify and denounce sexist cyber-violences in Gran Canaria. This map will include the analysis of cases and consequences on the island of this undesirable phenomenon of the digital world and it will include at least a hundred testimonies of affected women and specialists in the field.
The project ‘Gender-based cyberviolences: an analysis of the current situation in Gran Canaria’ has the support of the Department of Gender Equality of the Cabildo in its strategy to promote equality based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. The research will provide specific data on lines of prevention and action, as well as the present needs to address the problem in the island territory.
One of the most outstanding aspects of the initiative is its participatory and experiential methodology, which will result in a consultation through a focus group, questionnaires and interviews with women and key professionals working in the prevention and attention to gender-based cyber-violences in Gran Canaria.
The study will therefore shed new light on the reality and scope of gender-based cyber-violences in Gran Canaria, a threat that takes many different forms, and includes among others: cyber-bullying, non-consensual pornography or ‘sextortion’ and the use of technology to monitor and control a partner’s behaviour.
The research will help to make sexist cyber-violence visible as an outstanding form of violence against women, to find out about the current situation in Gran Canaria and to identify testimonies, assessments, demands and proposals through the voices of women who have experienced it first-hand. Moreover, it will point out the main types of sexist cyber-violence women suffer, the impact it has on their lives and what mechanisms they find to obtain information, protection and denounce it.
The generalisation of the Internet and New Information Technologies, the use of mobile devices, social networks, instant messaging services and geolocation, have facilitated new dynamics of control, intimidation, blackmail and online harassment whose wide reach, rapid dissemination and difficult elimination only increase the seriousness and impact they leave on the victims.
The project will contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the first of the axes of the Strategic Framework of the Department of Equality of the Cabildo for the prevention and protection against gender violence, including the empowerment of women in situations of violence, its treatment as a social problem, improving information on the reporting process and available resources, generating knowledge about the reality of women in situations of gender violence in Gran Canaria and generating knowledge, awareness and visibility of sexual violence, in this case cyber-violences.
Opciónate is a statewide non-governmental organisation based in Gran Canaria. Its multidisciplinary team of professionals specialised in the promotion of gender equality and the rights of women and girls has more than 20 years of experience in local, national and international projects.
The entity develops its activity through research, training, development, implementation and evaluation of projects and policies, the elaboration of written and audiovisual materials and consultancy to public and private entities. One of its main lines of action is to promote democratic cyber-citizenship and the prevention of and action against cyber-violence and cybercrime in coordination with its protagonists.
This study is currently in its second phase. You can actively participate by answering to the cuestionairy here.
