Originally published in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist on 26 November 2025 as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.
By Pio Smith, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director–Programme (a.i.), UNFPA, and Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner
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Digital safety is emerging as a new test of regional governance and security. Across Asia and the Pacific, technology is increasingly being exploited to monitor and silence women and undermine social cohesion, including through AI-generated deepfakes and a growing misogynistic rhetoric warping attitudes held by boys and young men.
Widespread under-reporting and the absence of agreed definitions and methodologies have hampered our efforts to understand the true extent of this harm. However, data from a range of studies shows that between 16 and 58 percent of women and girls worldwide face technology-facilitated violence, with younger women especially affected.
One young woman in Southeast Asia described to us how her former partner installed tracking software on her phone, monitored her messages and threatened to release intimate photos if she refused his demands. What began as digital surveillance quickly took over and derailed her life. She withdrew from online classes, stopped seeing friends and eventually left her job.
Her story echoes across our region. A study published in October 2024 and led by the University of Melbourne with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that technology was increasingly being used to control or shame women and girls.
Digital harms are real harms. They follow women into their homes, workplaces, relationships, politics and public life. Left unchecked, they erode trust, security and equality—the foundations of stable societies.
As connectivity deepens across Asia and the Pacific, so do the tools of surveillance and coercion. These include covert GPS monitoring, account hijacking and AI-generated deepfakes that can destroy reputations, livelihoods and futures in just a few clicks.
At the same time, online spaces are shaping how boys and young men see the world. The internet is awash with pornography that glorifies choking, strangulation, rape and incest. About 90 percent of pornography on popular platforms depicts violence or abuse of women, contributing to harmful norms and expectations, including among children.
Peddling online hate and rigid gender ideals is also big business, with product lines dedicated to reaching unrealistic and harmful images of masculinity. These brands aren’t just fuelling grievance and humiliation for ideology’s sake; they’re actively exploiting boys’ and young men’s search for belonging in a complex and contested online world for cash.
But amid these risks lies opportunity. Start-ups are emerging across the region. Many are young, ambitious and aware that trust and safety are competitive advantages as regulation tightens globally. They’re open to embedding user safety from the start if guidance, standards and investment align. This is a crucial window to build safer systems before harmful ones become entrenched.
Safety by Design is an ethos and design principle that eSafety has been promoting since 2018. It is now starting to take hold in the Indo-Pacific and globally. UNFPA’s Equitable by Design initiative—which calls out the importance of inclusive design as a foundation—is also gathering pace.
We believe we can reduce technology-facilitated violence if women and girls are not just users, but co-architects of platforms, systems and products. We need them included in safety testing of AI and tech products. Too often, the primary architects of these tools today simply have no lived experience of gender-based violence. In 70 to 80 percent of cases, engineers are men.
As Australia’s independent regulator for online safety, eSafety works to prevent and reduce online harms and shape digital environments where everyone can participate safely. As the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA ensures that women and girls can exercise their rights, dignity and autonomy in both online and offline spaces.
Together, we are advancing a shared goal: embedding safety, accountability and equality into the digital ecosystem.
In 2024, UNFPA and eSafety co-hosted the first Asia Regional Symposium on Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Bangkok, bringing together digital rights advocates, frontline responders, academics and policymakers from across the region. Their call to action was clear: coordinated, survivor-centred, gender-responsive digital safety strategies are urgently needed.
The collaboration led to the first global programming framework to guide governments, the private sector and civil society on prevention, platform accountability, legal protections and survivor support. Training initiatives are helping frontline workers provide informed, meaningful and specialist assistance to women experiencing digital harm.
Our partnership is influencing digital safety policy dialogues across the 36 countries where UNFPA works in Asia and the Pacific.
Australia’s leadership is pivotal. As a regional leader on preventing and responding to gender-based violence, it’s helping to shape a safer digital environment at home and across the region.
Creating safer digital spaces means ensuring technology reflects the values we hold: dignity, equality, fairness and freedom from harm. We have the evidence. We have the tools. We have the partnerships. Now, we must match ambition with action.
As the world marks the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the path forward is clear: invest in and embed Safety by Design; elevating women and girls as co-creators of our digital future; and engaging men and boys as partners in shaping respectful online cultures.
Digital safety is a measure of how well we protect rights and trust in the digital age. Every woman deserves to be safe in her home, in her community and on her screen.
