\u00bfHow does digital abuse affect women human rights defenders and women\u2019s organizations with a public profile in Paraguay? What consequences does it have for freedom of expression, participation, and democracy? A new study by Pilar Alvear, Maricarmen Sequera, and Lorena Segovia for TEDIC examines these issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The violence women face online does not begin or end on a screen. Digital attacks can harm their mental health, damage their reputations, limit their professional and political opportunities, weaken the organizations they belong to, and even spill over into the physical world. When these attacks target women human rights defenders and women\u2019s organizations with a public profile, their purpose goes beyond causing individual harm: they seek to silence agendas, discourage participation, and drive certain voices out of public debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study, Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence Against Women Human Rights Defenders and Women\u2019s Organizations in Paraguay<\/em>, examines how this form of violence manifests in the country, its individual and collective impacts, the responses of institutions and platforms, and the strategies of resistance developed by the organizations themselves. The study used a mixed-methods exploratory approach, combining a documentary and legal-regulatory review with an online survey that received 18 responses and three in-depth interviews with key organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The analysis focused on organizations with high public visibility and recurring exposure to attacks: environmental defenders, organizations working on sexual and gender diversity, and women communicators and journalists. This approach made it possible to examine how violence intensifies when gender intersects with other forms of inequality related to territory, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or leadership roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) encompasses any act committed, assisted, aggravated, or amplified through digital technologies that causes, or is likely to cause, physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm, or that violates rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This definition helps show that TFGBV is not separate from violence that occurs offline. Technology can extend its reach, accelerate its spread, make it easier for perpetrators to coordinate, and keep attacks continuously accessible. In this way, long-standing practices of control and exclusion find new channels through which to persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study is based on a central premise: TFGBV against women with a public profile serves as a means of disciplining them. It seeks to define what women can say, do, or represent in public life, particularly when their work challenges power relations or defends the rights of women, LGBTIQ+ people, Indigenous communities, or local communities and their territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A total of 55.6% of the organizations surveyed reported having experienced TFGBV. In addition, 43% of respondents said they had been personally attacked, while 14% reported being targeted both as individuals and through their affiliation with an organization. Ninety percent said they knew another person or organization that had experienced this type of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participants did not view the problem as static: 80% believe that violence against women with a public profile has increased in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The forms of abuse identified included coordinated campaigns of harassment, discrediting, and threats; the creation and spread of false or manipulated information; stigmatization and incitement to hatred by public officials; online mob attacks; the non-consensual sharing of intimate images; attacks targeting women in positions of authority; surveillance and the interception of communications; impersonation; and hacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Facebook was identified as the main platform where attacks take place: 70% of organizations reported attacks on the platform, followed by Instagram and WhatsApp, both at 60%. Among individuals who had been targeted, all identified Facebook as a channel for attacks. However, interviewees described X as the platform where abuse reaches the greatest levels of intensity and hostility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The findings confirm that the distinction between \u201cdigital\u201d and \u201creal-world\u201d violence is inadequate. In one-third of cases, the abuse began and remained online; in another third, it began offline and was amplified on social media; and in the remaining third, it originated in the digital sphere and had consequences in physical spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The harm is more severe for those facing multiple forms of discrimination. Among the cases documented, Indigenous women and LGBTIQ+ people\u2014particularly trans women\u2014accounted for the cases in which TFGBV escalated into physical violence. For Indigenous and environmental defenders, digital exposure intersects with territorial conflicts, economic interests, ethnic discrimination, and patriarchal structures both within and outside their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common effects were on mental and emotional health, reported by 80% of organizations and 67% of individuals who had been targeted. Participants described anxiety, fear, depression, post-traumatic stress, insomnia, and a constant sense of being watched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The violence also changes how organizations take part in public debate. Sixty percent reduced their online presence or resorted to self-censorship, and the same proportion changed their communications strategies to minimize risks. Half reduced their participation in public debate as a means of coping with a hostile environment. Some organizations stopped addressing certain issues, reduced the number of posts they published, or shut down profiles and websites. Others faced funding losses and difficulties carrying out projects, while some members stepped away because they no longer wanted to take on leadership roles or speak to the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The harm therefore extends beyond those directly targeted. When a woman human rights defender censors herself or an organization reduces its visibility, society loses voices, allegations, and perspectives that are essential to holding those in power to account and taking part in decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study also reveals deep distrust of the institutions responsible for providing protection. Few cases were reported to the justice system, and virtually none were reported to the police. Among women who had personally experienced TFGBV, only 33% filed a formal complaint, and none received a satisfactory response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barriers include fear of revictimization, public exposure, lack of protection, limited technical knowledge, and impunity. Cases are often minimized or treated as personal disputes, without recognition of their gendered dimensions or collective impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Platforms also fail to provide an adequate solution. Although many organizations report abusive content and accounts, none said they were fully satisfied with the responses they received. Blocking or removing an account is not enough to address coordinated campaigns that use multiple profiles and quickly reappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the absence of effective responses, organizations have developed their own protection strategies. Alliances and solidarity networks provide digital security training, technical assistance, legal support, and psychosocial care. Organizations also take steps such as preserving evidence, taking screenshots, not engaging with provocations, blocking abusive accounts, and coordinating mass reports to platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, these responses are carried out with limited resources. Only 40% of organizations have specific protocols or strategies for addressing TFGBV, often developed informally based on past experience. Lack of time, heavy workloads, limited funding, and insufficient government support make it difficult to sustain protective measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TFGBV violates individual rights, but it also erodes democracy. It restricts freedom of expression, undermines pluralism, obstructs women\u2019s access to decision-making spaces, and reinforces the notion that political, media, and digital spaces belong to men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study recommends prioritizing the effective implementation of existing legislation, particularly Law No. 5777\/16; training judges, prosecutors, police officers, and other public officials; strengthening intersectional analysis; developing monitoring systems to assess the scale of the problem; and holding technology companies accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also calls for investment in prevention and response within organizations, including digital security and self-care training, internal protocols, stronger feminist and human rights networks, and dedicated funding for psychosocial support and collective care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ensuring that women human rights defenders can express themselves, organize, and participate without violence is essential to a democratic society. Naming and documenting TFGBV, and responding to it collectively, are first steps toward preventing the internet from becoming yet another tool of exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA structural form of violence amplified by technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
More than half of the organizations surveyed experienced TFGBV<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From social media to bodies and territories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Silencing one woman human rights defender weakens an entire organization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Few reports filed and inadequate responses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Collective care and resistance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Protecting women\u2019s voices is protecting democracy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n