IWD 2025: Technology-facilitated violence in the Indo-Pacific is under-researched
A recently published study from Monash University researchers at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) reveals that technology-facilitated violence is an emerging and critical issue in the Indo-Pacific, but there remains very little peer-reviewed research on this phenomena in the region outside of Australia and New Zealand.
It’s estimated that up to 60% of women and girls in the Pacific have experienced violence at the hands of partners or family members. However, what is currently missing is a clear picture of technology-facilitated violence.
Anecdotal evidence suggests many communities in the Pacific are also grappling with high rates of online bullying and abuse, sexual harassment, and cyberstalking.
Last year, the United Nations’ theme for International Women’s Day was “Innovation and technology for gender equality”. However, a growing body of evidence shows technology might not be the catch-all solution for gender-based issues. In fact, in many cases, it’s used to facilitate violence against women and marginalised communities.
What do we know about technology-facilitated violence in the Pacific?
We know some of the most common forms of technology-facilitated violence include online harassment (including sexual harassment), image-based sexual abuse (including the emergence of sexualised deepfake abuse), impersonation, surveillance, doxing, and defamation.
We also know that among both perpetrators and victim-survivors, technology-facilitated violence is experienced and engaged in at higher rates among young people.
The open access paper, published in Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, reveals there are gendered patterns when it comes to perpetrating and experiencing technology-facilitated violence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Women face online gender-based and sexual harassment at disproportionately higher rates than men.
Men engage in perpetration at higher rates than women.
Women experience technology-facilitated violence in the context of other forms of intimate partner violence at higher rates than men.
And women report more significant impacts and harms from technology-facilitated violence than men.
Read more: Gaps in addressing sexual harassment in Indo-Pacific universities
The harms and impacts of technology-facilitated violence are varied and can include emotional and psychological harms. For example, victim-survivors report mental health conditions (such as depression and general anxiety disorder), reduced confidence and self-esteem, humiliation, and suicidal ideation.
Technology-facilitated violence also had a number of social impacts, including social isolation (both from online and in-person communities), co-occurring abuse impacting children, and safety concerns.
Financial harms experienced by victim-survivors also overlapped with behaviours enacted by perpetrators, such as restricting or denying access to finances, having loans taken out under their name by others (usually partners or ex-partners), and making their partner financially dependent.
Read more: Half of Australians have experienced technology-facilitated abuse in their lifetimes
A common finding reported in the paper was the pervasiveness of technology-facilitated violence with victim-survivors, support service workers, and stakeholders across a range of studies, each emphasising the feeling and power of omnipresence created by perpetrators who used technology to enact abuse.
This sense of omnipresence also created a number of psychological impacts, including fear and hypervigilance, with victim-survivors “feeling as though the abuse would never end and they would never be able to escape”.
What we need to find out
Most of the research on technology-facilitated violence in the Indo-Pacific emerges from Southeast Asia. The vast majority centres on Australia, and to a lesser extent New Zealand, leaving critical gaps in knowledge in other Indo-Pacific countries.
There’s also a notable lack of diversity in the existing studies exploring patterns according to gender diversity, sexuality, Indigenous, First Nations, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status, ethnic/racial background, and individuals with a disability.
There are some emerging and concerning findings about technology-facilitated violence victimisation regarding these diverse groups identified in the paper, which highlights the importance of further research and resources:
LGBTQIA+ persons face disproportionately high rates of online harassment in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Those who identify as Indigenous (in an Australian context), Aboriginal, and/or Torres Strait Islander experience high rates of technology-facilitated violence across multiple forms, including online harassment, image-based sexual abuse, and digital dating abuse.
Consistent with global trends, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and migrant women, as well as women with disabilities, disproportionately experience technology-facilitated violence, including being monitored, controlled, and/or having their regular activities tracked or controlled through digital tools and technologies.
Technology-facilitated violence and IWD
On this International Women’s Day, it’s important we take the opportunity to reflect on all that has been achieved, but also to identify what actions are required to address gender-based violence in all its iterations, particularly that facilitated by technologies.
And importantly, that any research, resources, programs and funding takes into account a broader regional focus, and ensures that the needs and views of those most at risk of harm (individuals who often experience an intersection of marginalisation) are represented in the research that seeks to provide an evidence-based framework for support, policy and reform.
