As digital connectivity expands worldwide, so too does the reach and severity of gender-based violence carried out through digital means. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TF-GBV) encompasses a spectrum of harms including online harassment, cyberstalking, non-consensual intimate image abuse, doxxing, sextortion, intimate partner surveillance, and the politically motivated silencing of women in public life. While these harms are increasingly documented globally, the evidence base remains fragmented, geographically skewed toward high-income settings, and weak on effective interventions.

Synthesizing evidence on TF-GBV

Strength and Serenity is working on a multi-strand systematic review organized around five research questions. Together, these strands examine the prevalence and typology of TF-GBV, its psychological and behavioral consequences for survivors, the adequacy of legal and platform-level institutional responses, the role of intersecting identities in shaping differential exposure and harm, and the effectiveness of prevention and response programs. The review prioritizes evidence from low- and middle-income countries and sub-Saharan Africa, where TF-GBV is rising rapidly yet remains systematically underresearched and inadequately addressed in policy.

Research questions

• What is the prevalence, frequency, and typology of TF-GBV experienced by women and girls, and how do platform type and internet access shape exposure risk?
• How does sustained exposure to online harassment and image-based abuse affect the mental health and digital participation of women, and what coping strategies do survivors employ?
• How do legal frameworks, platform governance mechanisms, and civil society organizations respond to TF-GBV, and whose interests do these responses center?
• How do intersecting identities, including race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and socioeconomic status, shape the nature, severity, and institutional visibility of TF-GBV?
• What is the evidence on the effectiveness of digital literacy programs, platform-level interventions, and legal reforms in reducing TF-GBV against women and girls?

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