IGF 2018 WS #228
How to support victims of non-consensual pornography?

Issue(s)

Organizer 1: Steffania Costa di Albanez, Acoso.Online
Organizer 2: Paz Pena, Acoso.Online
Organizer 3: Francisco Vera, Acoso.Online

Speaker 1: Steffania Costa di Albanez, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 2: Paz Pena, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: Francisco Vera, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)

Moderator

Paz Peña

Online Moderator

Francisco Vera

Rapporteur

Steffania Costa di Albanez

Format

Flash Session - 30 Min

Interventions

Francisco Vera (Chile) and Steffania Costa di Albanez (Brazil), co-creators of Acoso.Online, will present the project to complete objective one.

Paz Peña (Chile), co-creator of Acoso.Online, in order to achieve objective two, will explain how we work with local partners in different countries and present some local testimonies of partners (video) working with Acoso Online.

Diversity

Acoso.Online is a project developed and devoted to women and LGBTIQ people from the Global South.

We will present Acoso.Online / Assedio.Online, the first website in Latin America and the Caribbean oriented to victims of non-consensual pornography, giving them direct advice on how to deal with the platforms, legal, judicial, organizational and digital security challenges related with this kind of violence against women and LGBTQI people. This project is nowadays reaching eight Latin American countries (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Panama and Mexico), and by the date of the IGF, we will have new contents from other countries of the region, with information in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

We have two goals in this flash session:
1. Present our project, its website and how their contents were born responding to challenges with platforms, states and communities.
2. Invite people from other countries, from any continent in the Global South, that want to join to this collective project to support victims of non-consensual pornography on the internet.

As this is a flash presentation and not a debate, we only have the last 8 minutes of the session to answer questions from the audience, encouraging remote participation. Questions in the room will be made all at once, with mics rotating in the room according the demand. As flash sessions have only 30 minutes, we will encourage to contact us afterwards the session.

How to cope with cases of non-consensual pornography on the internet from a multistakeholder approach?

Non-consensual pornography on the internet is one of the most common ways of online gender-based violence. As evidence shows, in most cases this violence suffered by women and, in a second degree, by those sexual minorities to humiliate and punish a free sexual and autonomous behaviour. The consequences for the victims of non-consensual pornography have been long studied and have a long range of intensities, from deserting of any active engagement with internet, to self-censorship, depression or even suicide. One of the key elements that make this violence especially harmful, is the lack of support and specialized counselling to the victims, who tend to feel guilty for what happened, and if they choose to act, most usually face lack of support from authorities and platforms. Advance in this specific issue is one of the most concrete ways that the IGF community can address gender violence in the online context.

We want to advance in the discussion of gender and internet with the presentation of a concrete tool to help victims of gender violence on the internet, that was made in a collective effort by several NGOs and activists, and that can be replicated in other cultural contexts by civil society, States and/or the private sector.

Online Participation

The moderator will collect, organize in topics and bring remote questions to organizers 10 minutes before the end of the session, in order to have time to answer them. These question will have priority, because people in the room can reach us afterwards if they didn't have the chance to ask any question.