Harm Online, Harms Offline

At Abianda we work with young women and girls affected by criminal exploitation and violence. As part of our reflections of this year’s 16 Days of Activism, Fee (Head of Programmes for Borough Provision) sat down with Sophie (Admin & Operations Intern) to talk about what she thinks it's important that we highlight about this year’s theme of Digital Harm, with the young women and girls we work with in mind. 

We started off by reflecting on the statement provided by a statement we found on the UN Women website; “Harm online, harms offline” and Fee referred back to times in my practice where, young women who had experienced violence in their community found out soon after that the incident had been filmed and circulated, significantly impacting both their recovery from the trauma they had experienced and their safety in their community. 

We went onto think about some of the different ways that young women and girls interact with spaces and some of the language around this. We spoke about the normalisation of sharing your location and the difference there might be between doing this on something like Life360 vs. apps like SnapMaps. Sharing your location with those close to you can give some young women and girls an increased sense of safety whilst sharing it further than this might increase the risk from individuals seeking to exploit or harm them. 

Sophie and I reflected on the victim blaming that young women and girls experience that can span their offline and online lives. We spoke about how young people’s lives exist increasingly online in a way that older generations largely can’t relate to. As a result, we spoke about how education around “online safety” is often just not fit for purpose, usually leaning into long lists of ‘do nots’ and punitive or dictatorial approaches rather than seeing this as an opportunity for conversations that centre young women and girls’ voices, seeing them as the experts in their lives and in their experiences of online spaces whilst also offering tools and support.

Sophie reflected on how this year’s theme connects to a resource that young women at Abianda recently helped to bring to life; the Imagining Resistance cards. We wonder how often online spaces become spaces of resistance for young women and girls and how this in turn may impact their wellbeing. Sophie and I wanted to leave you with a call to action in the form of a few questions for reflection; 

• If online spaces were safe for young women and girls, what would they notice? About the spaces and about themselves? What difference might this make? 

• How does Social Media support us to resist in powerful and positive ways? 

• When it comes to online spaces, what are the things you do to look after your mind? 

Watch this space as in the new year, Sophie and Fee will be returning to offer key insights and pose more questions that encourage you to reflect on young women & girls experiences of online spaces and digital harm.