A/HRC/38/47
coordinate, with the support of OHCHR and UN-Women, to tackle human right
violations online, in general, and online violence against women, in particular, in their
work, reports and recommendations.
B.
Recommendations for States
93.
States should recognize online and ICT-facilitated violence against women as a
human rights violation and a form of discrimination and gender-based violence
against women, and duly apply core international human rights instruments.
94.
States should implement the principle that the human rights and women’s
rights protected offline should be protected online by the ratification and
implementation of all core human rights treaties.
95.
States should, in accordance with the principle of due diligence, enact new laws
and measures to prohibit new emerging forms of online gender-based violence. Such
laws should be grounded in international women’s human rights law and standards,
as outlined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (with due consideration for general recommendations Nos. 19 and 35
of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) and the
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, and in other global and
regional women’s human rights instrument, such as the Inter-American Convention
on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do
Pará Convention), the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating
Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and the Protocol to the African
Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.
Furthermore, States should ensure that their legal frameworks adequately protect all
women’s human rights online, including the right to life free from violence, freedom
of expression and access to information, and the right to privacy and data protection.
96.
States should collect and publish data disaggregated by sex on Internet and
ICT availability, and take measures to eliminate any gender inequality in access to
technologies, in accordance with article 4.1 of the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
97.
States should also promote digital literacy in the use of the Internet and ICT for
all, without sex- or gender-based discrimination, and promote gender equality at all
levels of education, including online education, from early childhood onwards.
98.
States should draft a United Nations resolution on women’s human rights and
online and ICT-facilitated violence against women, and develop United Nations
guidelines on the role of intermediaries in that respect.
99.
States should, in accordance with the principle of due diligence, ensure that
regulations on Internet intermediaries respect the international human rights
framework, including that with regard to business and human rights, which should be
explicitly expanded to include women’s human rights instruments that prohibit
gender-based violence online.
100. States should ensure that effective measures are taken to prevent the
publication of harmful material that comprises gender-based violence against women,
and for their removal on an urgent basis. States should adopt, or adapt (as
appropriate) their criminal and civil causes of action to hold perpetrators liable. Such
legislative measures should be applicable also to threats of releasing harmful
information or content online.
101. States should clearly prohibit and criminalize online violence against women, in
particular the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, online harassment and
stalking. The criminalization of online violence against women should encompass all
elements of this type of abuse, including subsequent “re-sharing” of harmful content.
The threat to disseminate non-consensual images must be made illegal so that
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