The University of Luxembourg joins the UN’s Orange Week – a campaign against violence towards women and girls. In Luxembourg, 38 % of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15 years. Among these women, 71 % have suffered health consequences because of the violence received.1
On 25 November, the University turns its website orange as a sign of commitment to the campaign and raises awareness for cyber violence, in particular, through poster campaigns on campus and social media posts. Cyber violence against women and girls is gender-based violence through electronic communication and the Internet. It takes many forms including unwanted sexually explicit emails; offensive advances on social networks; threats of violence by email or online messages; hate speech, etc.
Although online violence can affect everyone, women and girls experience different and more traumatic forms of cyberbullying. More specifically, a study in the United States in 2014 found that young women disproportionately experience severe types of cyber violence such as cyberstalking and online sexual harassment.2 Another study in Germany found that women are significantly more often victims of online sexual harassment and stalking.3
Cyber violence is closely linked with “real” life violence, affecting women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities. Women and girls who experience sexual harassment, stalking or violence from an intimate partner in “real” life are also often victims of online violence from the same person. For this reason, taking a gender blind approach to cyber violence is very limited. Cyber violence is not a completely separate phenomenon to ‘real world’ violence, when, in fact, it is more appropriately seen as a continuation of it.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, with a major part of professional and schooling activities going online for extended periods, exposure to cyber violence may have increased. Unfortunately, systematic data is still unavailable, but future research will quantify the effect of COVID-related measures on gender-based violence.
Researchers’ at the University of Luxembourg have contributed with several studies and research projects related to cyber violence. For instance, Prof. Georges Steffgen and coauthors analyse empathy in cyberbullies by running a survey among school pupils in Luxembourg.André Melzer The authors find that cyberbullies are less empathic than non-cyber ones, probably due to greater anonymity and lack of direct reaction of the victims4. Prof. 5 does research on gender in the media and specifically in video games. In a 2017 paper, Melzer and Fernandez de Henestrosa investigate the exposure to violent and sexual content in popular video games and how this affects gamers.6
Beyond research, the University has participated in several raising awareness campaigns. Last December, the University organised a campaign against child marriage accompanied by a roundtable with the Ombudperson of Luxembourg, Claudia Monti, and deputy of the European Parliament, Charles Goerens.
Luxembourg actively supports the UN Women in the fight against violence towards women and girls, globally. In 2017, Luxembourg was the UN Women’s largest per capita donor and consistently ranked among the top 20 overall donors. Several associations like Conseil National des Femmes, Zonta International, Ladies in Law Luxembourg (LILLA) and Soroptimist Luxembourg work for gender equality and against violence towards women and girls in Luxembourg, supported by the Ministry for Equality between Women and Men.
References
1 https://eige.europa.eu/gender-equality-index/2017/domain/violence/LU.
2 See https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/10/22/online-harassment/.
3 Dreßing, H., and al (2014), “Cyberstalking in a Large Sample of Social Network Users: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Impact Upon Victims”, Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking.
4 Georges Steffgen, Andreas König, Jan Pfetsch, and André Melzer. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Nov 2011.643-648.http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2010.0445.
5 In another study, analysing Benelux countries, researchers find that between 8 and 10.4% of students between 12 and 24 years old were found victims of cyberbullying, 3.8 to 4.4% are victims of cyberbullying on a regular basis (at least once per month). See Steffgen, Vandebosch, Völlink, Deboutte, and Dehue (2011).
6 The Effects of Sexualized Violence in Video Games on Rape Myth Acceptance, by Fernandez de Henestrosa, Martha; Melzer, André, 2017.