A/HRC/50/25 sexist insults by law enforcement and detention personnel, especially during the unjustified repression of peaceful mobilization. 38. In the context of backlashes against gender equality, girls and young women face increased risks of harassment and violence when engaging on themes related to gender equality, particularly sexual and reproductive rights, equality in marriage and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer+ issues. In addition, girls and young women may face domestic violence, including sexual violence, as a reprisal for their activism or may be separated from their children by their partners and family as a form of punishment.30 In some cases, they have to choose between pursuing their activism or keeping family ties. Moreover, many girls lack the means to support themselves independently and the loss of family support due to their activism can have devastating consequences.31 Others are forced to abandon their activism to ensure the economic survival of their families.32 39. Digital gender-based violence and harassment add a further layer of challenges to girls’ and young women’s activism. 33 Digital technologies may be used to blackmail, control, surveil, coerce, harass, humiliate or objectify girl and young women activists, including by resorting to “deep-fake” pornographic content and death threats. As a result, many victims of these practices limit their online activities, leading to self-censorship, endure stigma in their families and communities, or flee online spaces altogether. The majority of the young women and girls consulted had experienced some form of targeted and gendered online abuse, including threatening messages, sexual harassment and the sharing of private images without their consent.34 Attacks against girl and young women activists are often orchestrated with the aim of discrediting and delegitimizing them and exposing them to ridicule, contempt or defamation. In some cases, their families may prohibit them from continuing their activism because of the reputational damage that may follow. In certain countries, their very presence on social media may constitute a great risk to girls’ and young women’s personal integrity. Large-scale data collection and algorithm-driven analysis targeting sensitive information creates new threats for activists, particularly those from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer+ communities. As one activist explained: “when doing online campaigns, sometimes we are afraid to speak openly because we know that there is digital surveillance from the government”. 40. Girls are affected by different forms of abuse from adults, including physical punishment by family members, stigmatization in their communities or reprisals from their educational institutions, including by preventing them from taking their exams. During the consultations, girls voiced their experience of punishment by teachers and school authorities, as well as a more general lack of support to help them reconcile school attendance with their activism. 4. Hostile environments 41. Some of the activists with whom the Working Group met mentioned experience of arbitrary arrests, intimidation, threats of killings, kidnappings, being tracked and spied on, as well as abusive use of anti-terrorist legislation to further shrink the civic space and restrict their activities. In some countries, “home arrest”, accompanied by occasional attacks at the house, threats to family members and sexual abuse, is used as a method to control and restrict activists’ work. Some also reported that, given the overall environment of intimidation they faced, feminist groups and protection networks might be difficult to access for younger activists, as these groups tended to limit the entry of or engagement with external actors, for fear of reprisals. As one activist emphasized: “It is important to make people understand that we do not want to create conflicts; we only want to address and solve certain problems 30 31 32 33 34 Ibid. and A/HRC/40/60. See A/HRC/40/60. See Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, “Children as agents of positive change. A mapping of children’s initiatives across regions, towards an inclusive and healthy world free from violence” (2021). See A/HRC/38/47. See https://webfoundation.org/2020/03/the-online-crisis-facing-women-and-girls-threatens-globalprogress-on-gender-equality/. 11