One in three women in the UK has experienced online violence, rising to nearly half of young women aged 16-24, according to a major new report from Refuge and the End Violence Against Women Coalition.
Dangerous by Design, published today, draws on nationally representative polling of 2,000 women. It found that 36% of women have experienced some form of online violence against women and girls (VAWG), including misogyny, sexual harassment, stalking, monitoring and image-based abuse. Among 16-24-year-olds, that figure rises to 47%.
The report reveals the scale of specific harms: a quarter of women have experienced misogyny or sexual violence online, one in five have faced online harms suggestive of coercive control, stalking or harassment, and almost one in five have experienced image-based sexual abuse. Young women, LGBTQIA+ women and Disabled women are disproportionately affected across every category measured. More than half of LGBTQIA+ women (57%) reported experiencing misogyny and sexual violence online.
Perpetrators are most commonly strangers (53%), but current or former partners account for 22% of cases, rising to 30% among young women. Nearly one in ten women who experienced online VAWG were targeted by a group of strangers, rising to 17% of Black and minoritised women.
The consequences are severe. Of women who experienced online VAWG, 41% reported anxiety, 14% had panic attacks and 7% felt suicidal – doubling to 15% among young women. One in seven stopped using the platform entirely, while 38% modified their online behaviour, creating what the report calls a ‘chilling effect’ on women’s freedom of expression.
Despite the harm, few women report it. Fewer than a third (29%) told the platform, and only 12% went to the police. Among those who did report, satisfaction was consistently low: 58% were dissatisfied with the platform’s outcome, and around a third were dissatisfied with the police investigation.
The report also raises alarm about AI. Two-thirds of women are concerned about AI’s role in enabling abuse, and the same proportion lack confidence in the Government’s regulation of it. Among young women, 80% now use AI chat systems regularly, and 17% have received dating or relationship advice from AI they considered inappropriate, unhealthy or unsafe.
Refuge CEO Gemma Sherrington said: ‘These findings are reflective of a system that has continued to prioritise profits over safety, leaving women to pay the price. This cannot continue. The government and Ofcom must go much further in holding tech companies legally responsible for combatting the normalisation of misogyny, holding perpetrators to account, and keeping all women and survivors safe.’
EVAW interim director Janaya Walker said: ‘This report is a stark reminder of the ways in which online VAWG is a major feature of women’s everyday lives to devastating effect, particularly for young women. The status quo is untenable and the government’s efforts to prevent VAWG needs to confront the business model of big tech, with a regulatory system which has the teeth to hold them to account. A world in which such violence and abuse is routine carries wider consequences for society at large – for our relationships and gender equality, our sense of safety, and democracy.’
The charities are calling on the Government to strengthen the Online Safety Act by upgrading Ofcom’s voluntary VAWG guidance into a legally enforceable Code of Practice, introduce safety-by-design principles, expand civil routes to justice for image-based abuse, and ringfence funding for specialist support services.
The full report can be read here.
Photo: Kirill Dice
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