Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Ordinary meeting ICM
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FEMM European Parliament
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 1
It's a way not only to hurt each one of us individually, but really to discipline all of us for not getting into politics, for abandoning politics. So harassment is used as a tool of political fight, as we can see, silencing women and silencing democracy. So, according to United Nations Women, online violence against women in the public sphere has exponentially escalated. The latest figures show that 70% of the surveyed women in the past few years have experienced online violence in the course of their work, and 41% reported offline harm linked to online abuse. The latest, and I would like to welcome, I've just seen here, the director of AG Calinhili. The AG FRA survey on gender-based violence was published just two days ago. It is very interesting, exceptionally good, with very granular information that we can all use to combat violence against women and to transform society to zero tolerance.
And, one, I would say this: this survey, published just two days ago, provides new findings on gender-based cyber violence. Four point six percent of the inquiry women members reported having suffered different abusive behaviors online, such as the spread of misinformation to harm them or the use of sexist language against them. 12.3 experienced this behavior both online and offline. The same report calls on the European Union and member states to establish clear and binding obligations for digital service providers to prevent and respond to cyber violence against women. We have the DSA, so let's use it.
Despite important milestones in legislation like the Violence Against Women Directive from 2024, the Digital Services Act that I just mentioned, or the new Victim Rights Directive, we passed the result of the interinstitutional negotiation a few days ago. So, we have to congratulate ourselves for that. And the scale of gender-based violence shows that we are not where we should be on the ground. The implementation of the legislation will be extremely important. It is now that social media, in particular, has a major role in facilitating online abuses and reinforcing gender stereotypes.
Women and girls are more likely to suffer gender-based abuse on social media than men. The harmful stereotypes regarding women on social media significantly limit women's personal and professional development, as well as our capacity to participate in the public sphere and in politics. It is also evident that women challenging patriarchal norms on social media risk triggering widespread online abuse, which has a chilling effect on many activists and weakens feminist solidarity. This is very difficult to weaken our feminist solidarity. Misogyny has infected the digital world, and its consequences are endangering democracy. This is deeply disturbing.
They have really, as I was saying before, found the path to spread this misogyny and to make a kind of natural mindset of inequality instead of equality. We cannot normalize these brutal acts of intimidation, either online or offline. These women are just living their lives. We are trying to live our life doing our work, their work. They should not leave with fear or retaliation, nor retract from online spaces to avoid this ill treatment.
They should not be discouraged from joining the public sphere in the first place. In fact, there are fewer women, especially young women, who want to get into politics. There are experienced politicians who live in politics either because they are exhausted, and we have very good examples. Hassid Arden came into my mind because she openly said, "I'm exhausted." And this is because we suffer much more pressure and violence when we are in this public space, as far as I know.
So, women leaders and women rights defenders are pro-democracy forces, guardians of democracy, and they must be recognized as such and duly protected. If they are silenced, if we are silenced, it means we will all be silenced sooner or later. So this brings me to our guest speakers today, who are all women in the public sphere. And I hope we can leave this discussion with a better idea of how we can counter these threats, continue to raise awareness of the problem, and support women's rights defenders. There are some estimations showing that because of cuts in international aid, especially from some countries like the US, half of women's NGOs will disappear by the end of this year.
If that is true, there is very sad news that we really need to counteract, especially from the European Commission. So your knowledge and personal experiences with gender-based digital violence and its impact on the shrinking of democratic space are extremely impactful. You are not alone. We are not alone. We are here together to define this problem and find solutions.
And now, to kick off today's meeting, we have a short welcome video message from the president of our European Parliament, Roberta Metsola. She cannot be here with us as in other locations, but she has sent us a video message. So please, let's talk about our president, Roberta Metsola, and thank her for this message.
Speaker 2
Before anything else today, I want to send a message of strength to all the women and people on the streets of Iran, women whose extraordinary courage must not be forgotten. Being able to live without fear, to be respected, and to be treated fairly should not depend on who you are or where you live. It should be a reality for every woman and girl, and that is why the work you are doing here is so important. It is also why this house adopted the first-ever EU directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, including clear rules against some of the worst forms of online abuse. Next week in plenary, we will hear from Jackie Fox, whose daughter Nicole took her own life after years of terrible online bullying.
Speaker 3
We wanted her story to be heard because this kind of harassment is too often brushed aside as something that just comes with social media, that we somehow have to live with, but we don't, and we will never tolerate it. Women in public life, including many of you in this room, will sadly be all too familiar with the messages, the threats, and the constant stream of abuse online. And yes, sometimes you wonder whether it would be easier to step back, but when women step back, all of Europe loses out. That is why, a few months ago, we voted to introduce proxy voting so that pregnant members and new mothers would no longer have to choose between their family and their work here. Now, we will keep pushing to ensure it becomes a reality soon.
Speaker 4
But we know there is still much more to do. So, I count on all of you to keep pushing, to keep speaking up, and to make sure that the work we do here truly changes women's lives for the better in Europe and beyond. Thank you.
Speaker 1
So, yes, indeed. As the president Metzola has said, we have to make sure that the work we are doing here really changes all lives for the better, especially for women, and also improves our democracies and our societies. And a person who has a lot to do with that is our first speaker. I would like, especially, to thank her for being here today. As always, we ask her to be with us in this very important moment.
She's always with us. So, I would like to welcome Commissioner Haya Labib, who is Commissioner for Equality, but also for Preparedness and Crisis Management. So, as you can see, she's very busy with her entire portfolio, not just for equality. And so, we really look forward to a very important day. Also, we are very much expecting what you will present a bit later on, I guess.
I don't know if you will.
To know.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Mention something already here because, today, as she says, the new gender equality strategy will be presented, and we are all really looking forward to knowing what is in there. So, Commissioner Lavie, thank you once more, and the floor is yours for 10 minutes.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Thank you, honorable Chair, dear Lina Galves, honorable members, and ladies and gentlemen. And I would like to start by welcoming all the men in this room. We need you, guys. We really need you.
Speaker 6
So, thank you for being here. For me, it's always a pleasure to be with you, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you ahead of this International Women's Day. This is, I think, a moment to look honestly at how far we have come and how far we will still have to go. And I think this year's team writes justice action for all women and girls is really a call to action. And our new gender equality strategy that I'm going to present this afternoon is precisely that: a plan of action and a compass for the next five years.
It sets our direction. It keeps us on course and keeps us always moving forward. It builds on the roadmap for women's rights that we adopted altogether last year, and at a time when some want to turn back the clock on women's rights, I can assure you that we are not going to let that happen. The EU will remain a strong and steady beacon for gender equality. If last year's roadmap was a promise, this strategy is our engine to put into action.
As Lina has just mentioned, the digital world is where many of today's battles for equality are being fought. And let's be clear. Online abuse against women is not random. It's not just social media. It's a deliberate attack on equality and democracy.
When women are silenced online, democracy shrinks. Parliament lost votes. Elections are distorted. Policies become less inclusive, and all democracies grow weaker. That is why we treat digital violence for what it truly is: a threat to equality and to democracy itself.
The good news is that we have strong tools. The Violence Against Women Directive criminalizes intimate image abuse, cyberstalking, and cyberharassment. The Digital Services Act requires platforms to detect and remove illegal content. These are not suggestions. These are legal obligations.
Our priority now is to put the Violence Against Women Directive fully into action. I urge national parliaments here today to take action now. The 2027 transposition deadline is right around the corner. The European Commission will support you, and we will act. We are already enforcing the Digital Services Act.
We took action against Grok over AI-generated sexually explicit deepfakes. We took action on so-called nudifying apps, and we moved against pornographic platforms to better protect minors. In Europe, tech companies are not above the law. We are also engaging in structured regulatory dialogues with online platforms, and we are strengthening trusted flaggers so illegal content is removed faster. We are also working on the safety of political candidates under the European Democracy Shield.
Nearly 1 in 3 women in politics report abuse, including online attacks. And we know this personally. Many of you do as well. And democracy cannot function if women are bullied out of public life. Online or offline, violence is violence, and we will not accept it.
Thank you.
Speaker 6
Honorable members, let's be honest. Laws alone will not provide centuries of bias. You cannot legislate away stereotypes overnight, and that's why we are also tackling anti-gender narratives and disinformation, because this backlash is not random. According to the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, anti-gender campaigns received over €1,000,000,000 between 2019 and 2023. Can you believe that?
This is organized. This is coordinated and extremely well-funded. This information is being used as a political weapon to polarize our societies and weaken our democracies, and we will not ignore it. We will launch a study into these networks, especially those targeting young men and boys, to understand who is behind them and how they operate, because you cannot fight what you don't understand. We will also fund civil society and community initiatives to reduce polarization.
We have already invested over €8,000,000 to tackle digital violence and gender stereotypes under the Citizenship, Equality, Rights, and Values program. And, of course, we will continue. But prevention starts very early, and this is why we will support schools in tackling gender stereotypes. We'll support member states in developing educational materials on consent, making it clear that consent is the basis for all sexual relationships. And we will promote what we call the Heal for Boys approach in health, education, administration, and literacy.
And this will encourage more men to enter professions traditionally dominated by women. Equality must unite us, not divide us. And yes, men and boys are co-authors of this story. Gender equality is not a women's issue. It's a social issue.
A world that is fairer for women is also better for men because equality makes everyone—men and boys, girls and women—stronger. So where do we go from here? Our gender equality strategy gives us very powerful tools, but tools only matter if we use them. Success depends on our collective action. National parliaments play a crucial role, and your presence here today proves it.
You shape the laws and directions of all societies. Equality does not happen in Brussels alone. It happens in every parliament, every classroom, and every community. Yes. The world has changed, and not always for the better, unfortunately.
But I can assure you that one thing has not changed: the European Union's commitment to gender equality, and that commitment is rock solid. Equality is a responsibility. So let's take this responsibility, and let's build a Europe that is rich with opportunity for every woman, girl, man, and boy. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
So, thank you very much, Commissioner. We are really glad to listen to the European Union's commitment to gender equality. It is there, and we will all work together to really counter these anti-gender narratives that, as you say, are not random. They are very well financed, and we really need to be in front of them with values. And the values that are enshrined in our treaties, including gender equality, are part of our fundamental values. We also need this evidence-based knowledge for the best decision-making.
I have to say here, and I will take this opportunity to say that there are members already from this European Parliament who are tackling specific researchers within the European Union, specific projects that are financed by Horizon Europe, asking to cut the funds to those projects and targeting those specific researchers just because they are doing research exactly on how these anti-gender narratives are spreading, on how these anti-democratic movements are spreading. There are members asking to cut their funds here. So we really need to stand very firmly against this silencing initiative, this antidemocratic initiative targeting women and also targeting feminist knowledge in a way. So, now from Europe to the world, because it is also very important: our position in the world and also our responsibilities from this committee and from the European Union on this external action to promote women's rights and gender equality all over the world, especially this week. And that's it. We are also going in a few days to the sales outlook at the United Nations. So I'm really glad to welcome Florence Reyes, director of UN Women Brussels Liaison Office.
So the floor is yours, and thank you once more for being here with us. Thank you.
Speaker 8
Thank you very much, Your Excellency Commissioner Labib, distinguished chair, excellencies, guests, and colleagues. Maybe let me start by thanking the commissioner for setting such a strong and important tone, not just for the day, but for reaffirming the leadership of the European Union globally on gender equality, women's rights, and empowerment. Also, thanking the chair not just for the invitation of you and women, but for your leadership and your personal dedication, which makes it every day harder to backtrack on gender equality for those who are so intent. Both, I would say, are central. Let me, therefore, also commend not just the European Commission and the Parliament, but also the member states.
Speaker 7
And we have several representatives here because, as the commissioner mentioned, it's about transposing international, regional, or EU directives and legislation into rights that concretely improve women's and girls' lives in your countries and make them feel safe. I think having this event at the parliament today is also quite symbolic. We've heard it from the commissioner. We've heard it from Lina. This is the heart of European democracy.
And I think for those of us who were born in it some time ago, but even more recently, we realize that we're glad that we can express our opinion. We can exchange views. We don't necessarily need to agree, but we can still say it. Yet, that civic space is shrinking. And I think it's not by chance that tackling women's rights goes hand in hand with shrinking civic space and, let's say, the attacks on democracy and on multilateralism, because these are the pillars that sustain the foundations of equality, democracy, and freedom for all.
Now, we all know democracy depends on participation. It depends on representation and the principle that every voice should be heard and carry the same weight. We've heard that the digital sphere has become one of democracy's central arenas. Online platforms shape public opinion. They provide spaces to engage with constituencies.
Speaker 8
But, unfortunately, as mentioned and raised in different spaces and evidenced by different studies, the principles of our democracy are under strain, and women bear the brunt of it. Women are challenged for their gender, portrayed as too emotional, too ambitious, too visible, or somehow unfit for leadership. For many women, these digital spaces, as you know very well, become spaces of intimidation and abuse rather than empowerment and visibility. In everyday life, women in politics, journalism, and activism are the ones who face harassment, disinformation campaigns, abuse, threats, and violence the most. Some numbers have already been mentioned.
Speaker 7
I will not go through the details, but I can certainly tell you that if we look at the global numbers, they totally concur with the data pulled by AG or that we have for the European Union. And this is still noting that online abuse goes largely underreported. I think on those ones, UN Women launched a set of surveys and studies as well. The trends are alarming. Two-thirds of women elected in local governments reported experiencing violence.
So, really, the local government is where the tech is; I mean, I'm talking worldwide. Right? I'm not talking about Europe necessarily, but about other regions as well. It is the place where women are attacked the most, and it is not difficult to understand that those online attacks go offline because we know that online doesn't stay online, especially if we're talking about locally elected women. Now, one in four women journalists reports online threats of physical violence.
Yet, we know that only 9 to 20%, depending on the countries and regions, will report. Most of them are from the data, and you, being parliamentarians, journalists, I mean, you're quite empowered. We're quite empowered. Still feel that talking to family and friends is safer than going to the police or, you know, to legal institutions. So, definitely, this tells us a lot about what we still need to do globally, regionally, and at country levels.
One-fourth of parliaments have sexual harassment policies for parliamentarians. That is way too little globally. We also know that 40% of countries only have dedicated laws, and I totally agree with you, Commissioner. Laws are not sufficient, but I think the EU directive is probably one of the few in the world. I always joke, and I'll make the joke now that you're here, because it's one of the last ones after the Berlin Declaration or the Maputo Protocol, but it has online violence in it. So, the other regions and globally, we need to learn from it.
I think you mentioned CSW, the Convention on the Status of Women, in the next two weeks. The topic of access to justice is not by chance. In these times, we need to go back to the basics. We need to go back to the EU treaties, to the UN Charter, and to the fundamental principles of non-discrimination, making violence, wherever at home or online, a crime. And we need to equip ourselves with the laws, but also with the justice systems that allow for implementation.
There is still too much of, oh, it's online. It's not that bad. No. No. No.
No. No. Because we know that women politicians and journalists tend to withdraw from those spaces. They just changed careers, and we're talking about powerful women. So, you can imagine a young girl behind the screen feeling unsafe and isolated, while perpetrators still feel safe, and impunity is still the norm.
Now, linking to that, I would say this, of course, doesn't happen just in silos. Digital violence moves fast. It's transnational, which means we need global responses. CSW access to justice with a strong engagement of member states, and thank you, by the way, for a very ambitious EU position, which I know several of you have pushed in this room. Let's see what happens at CSW because access to justice is broad, but certainly, we have the ambition to have a normative international standard.
Johanneumon has not waited, let's say, to work on policy, technical assistance, tools, and capacity building. We've quickly counted with colleagues over 100 initiatives in 40 countries over the past years. And I want to thank, but also underline the importance of the programs that have been funded by the European Commission, not just because we're talking about financing, but because we're giving a clear political signal that we're on the same line. The European Commission has supported you and women with the WHITE program, which focuses on women and youth participation, the ACT program to combat violence at the grassroots level, the Spotlight program, and many more. Last year, we launched 2 new tools.
One for legislation on online violence. So, of course, you have the EU directive, but for those who are transposing it, and yes, the clock is ticking, as the commissioner mentioned, there are some interesting practices which I encourage you to look at. I think, as a conclusion, I would like to talk about the multilateral dimension and not just the fact that space is shrinking for women and girls, and that we need to hold the line. Like we say to women, it's not the backlash. It's, you know, how do we move forward?
Because if we stay stuck on how we're going to argue with anti-rights groups, which narratives do we use? And, again, Caroline will address that. It's not the majority of the population. They're very loud and very well funded. You mentioned 1,000,000,000.
I think globally, we're looking at, but of course, the data is underestimated: 1,780,000,000. We're also looking in Europe at a phenomenon that was foreign-funded for a long time and now has endogenous funding. We're looking at Africa's influences through some other types of funding, not naming anyone. So, I think this is the reality. This is challenging, but let's not give up.
We can do something. Like I mentioned yesterday, and thank you, Lina, for the invitation as well, to address a little bit more the issue of rights. What's happening on the other side of the Atlantic is happening. Right? We cannot, or it should not be your main target.
I mean, maybe yours. That's another one. But talking to parliamentarians and civil society, we need to focus on what's happening here. And that accountability lies very much in your hands. I mean, feminist organizations and women's movements have pushed for rights for a long time.
These have been institutionalized. We have the architecture. We owe it to them to really fight with them. The way to do it will diverge depending on regions, countries, or others. But if we want to sustain democracy, if we want to ensure that we still have a voice and civic space, and that we curb the trends of threats against women's rights and gender equality online and offline, we must build alliances, and we must build alliances that go beyond the traditional alliances we have had so far.
And here I come to our joint responsibility in concluding. I think the EU and the UN have a common DNA. We need to hear the EU louder to defend multilateralism. You have done it. You do it.
And I think I'm talking to, or preaching to, the convinced, let's say. But we all know it's not a uniform position across different institutions. So please come to us as well when it's needed, when we can do something or say something so that our voices are heard louder. Let me finish on what else can be done, or what else we jointly can look at in terms of ensuring that women's rights remain on the map, that violence remains a taboo—not a taboo in terms of silencing, but something that we cannot tolerate. This year, it's not just the gender equality strategy, which I congratulate, but it's also the Gender Action Plan 4.
This year, you have strategic instruments being discussed, the central ones being the MFF and the budget. Right? You have Global Europe. You have the Global Gateway and Team Europe initiatives. How are these going to reflect the reality that women live not just in Europe, but on other continents?
And I think it is not a fantastic time, but it is definitely a time when we need to convince those in the middle ground and work closer together to make those instruments gender-sensitive and to ensure that Europe remains that bastion of hope, as you mentioned. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much, Faraz. We really take that challenge, and we are already working on MFF, especially. We will have to work especially on Global Europe and Global Gateway, of course, and on gender mainstreaming. And, of course, we will go back to you, go back as you were saying to the bases because these bases are, indeed, under attack. A lot of funding is going to combat advances in women's rights. Right?
They say we went too far, when in reality, we have not yet arrived at any equality. And, obviously, I completely agree that we need global responses and new alliances because the geopolitics of gender is becoming more and more complex. But, probably, we are more, not less, fighters for women's rights. And finally, I would personally appreciate your comment thanking us for our strong position at the European Union, but also here under the European Parliament, because today we are talking about digital violence. And I have suffered so much violence after this position because it was with my signature as the chair of the fund committee, as you can imagine. I could not open my social media for days because of how vilely I was attacked for that position.
Since you said it was a good position, at least it is worth exposing oneself if it is for a very good cause. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And now, I would like to move to you. So, we have to excuse our commissioner.
Today is a very important day, and you are excused, of course. And you too. Yeah. Well, we excuse our guests and see you later on the presentation of a very important day, the gender equality strategy, the new gender. There.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, our guest speakers, please join us at the podium because we will continue. And now, with the fighters and experts, I would like to say hello to you.
So, yes, we continue with Natalia Wallo, Ananas, Vlijsvili, Sylvia Simensin, Julie Guisha, Caroline, and Chile. And I will give the floor to each one of them for ten minutes. And then, after that, we will open the floor to all members of the European Parliament and Gas Parliaments here in Brussels today. So, our first speaker, on my left, is Natalia Wallach, journalist and columnist in Poland. She's a journalist, columnist, and author of a radio program and podcast with over 22 years of experience covering social issues, women's rights, and politics.
Thank you very much for the...
Speaker 1
Work you have been doing all over these 22 years and keep doing. So, the floor is yours for 10 minutes. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
That is good.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 11
Thank you very much. It's a great honor for me to be here to talk about such important issues. First of all, I would like to ask you to let me wait a second.
Speaker 11
I wanted to ask you if you remember that scene from the Game of Thrones series where Cersei Lannister is walking naked through the city, and the crowd insults her, spits on her, and throws things at her. Do you remember that? It was fiction, but practices similar to such shame marches really did exist. There were pillories, headshirts, and public confessions of sins that were never committed. Public shaming was always a tool of social control of women.
And today, those tools are cyberbullying, hate speech, and disinformation. According to reports by UN Women, the Polish Samenhall Institute, the Kosciusko Institute, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, women who are active in the public sphere, such as politicians, activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and writers, are particularly vulnerable to lynching through disinformation, fake news, and hate speech. They are publicly stripped of their dignity. And through deep freaks, they can literally be stripped naked. Research by the Economist Intelligence Unit showed that 38% of women have personal experience of cyber violence, and 65% of women know another woman in their close personal or professional circle who experienced the same.
The UN Women Report highlights that two thirds of activists, journalists, and human rights defenders reported cases of online violence, and in 41% of cases, that aggression is moving from the Internet to real life. And I bet that each of you, women gathered here, has a collection in the other folder—a whole collection of insults: stupid, old, ugly. I have such a collection on my phone too, just like every woman who speaks publicly. When The Guardian analyzed comments under its articles, two men and eight women were among the most frequently attacked, and the most fiercely attacked was a feminist columnist. Now, let's talk about this information.
We know it well. We're women. For centuries, we were told that we are too stupid to study. We are too emotional to make decisions about, even about ourselves, that our place is at home because four walls are all we can handle. And when we prove that none of this was true, this hydra of disinformation, fueled by social media and algorithms, is growing new heads.
And today, we hear that equality kills family and so-called traditional values, that it threatens the entire Western civilization. We hear that feminists hate children and don't have children. This is why we have a demographic crisis. And there are no inequalities, and the wage gap is a myth. Women who fight for their rights are immediately silenced.
The Polish Zamenhof Institute and the Kunciasko Institute showed in the reports how it's done. Commentators, often from fake accounts, insult women and write false information about them. Most of these insults are closely related to their gender. And very often, these comments sexualize the targets of such effects. In hateful comments, women are always criticized for their rage.
Of course, they are always either too old or too young. We know that a woman is never at the right age. The young ones have nothing to say, and the old ones should just disappear. But all of them definitely provided various services for high-ranking men in order to get where they are, because it is impossible that they achieved that solely thanks to their skills. Motherhood and childlessness are judged.
Legs, breasts, face, wrinkles around the eyes: a woman's body that is put on this trail of shame is literally dismembered like a cow carcass, and each piece of meat is viewed separately. And this is to undermine the woman's self-esteem. It is meant to embarrass her and ultimately destroy her. Some commentators added photos. Sometimes, they create deepfake videos.
This is what happened during the presidential election campaign in Mexico. Finally, there are those who publish photos of families. Recently, photos of my children were published on platform X. And there are also more extreme actions, which result in violence being transferred to real life. In my case, my address was tracked down on Facebook, but women are also tracked down by their location.
Stalkers follow. They call them and threaten them with rape, beating, or death. Very often, this mass cyberbullying is organized. The messages that women receive are very similar, as if they were dictated by the haters. And investigations show that attackers' accounts often originate from online groups where a signal to attack a specific woman is given.
Cyberbullying affects women from all sides of the political spectrum; activists of varied causes, both pro-choice and anti-abortion activists, are targeted, for instance. Nevertheless, many studies, including those conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute, show that misinformation and cyberbullying against women often result from far-right organizations, which is not a surprise because they target issues such as gender equality. However, this should not blind us to the most important fact. Namely, the attackers want to push as many women as possible out of the public sphere. Women are to be silenced, to stop putting issues on the public agenda.
They are to stop taking places which were reserved for men. Public ridicule, intimidation, and threats are meant to show them that in politics, in media, and in street protests, there is no place for women. It didn't work. The Dutch finance minister and deputy prime minister, Sigrid Kaag, resigned because of attacks and threats against her. The Swedes are sounding alarmed because women are beginning to withdraw from politics.
Anna Karinhard resigned as party leader after 5 months because of harassment and threats. Nine out of ten women, according to a report from the Economic Association, say that hate has a negative impact on mental health. 62 percent of women feel helpless. One in three women think twice before pressing enter, before publishing something, unlike half of women who say that the Internet is not a good place to express their opinions. Many studies show that, under the influence of hate speech, women begin to censor themselves.
They give up. They give up running for office or they put themselves somewhere in the fifth row of importance. And, well, when Donald Trump calls female journalists pigs, stupid, and ugly, that is not helping. Or where we have cases like that of the British MEP Joe Cox, who was shot by a nationalist fundamentalist. Hate and misinformation, which perpetuate stereotypes about where women belong, are successful because that fight doesn't even exist.
And we can't tell women, "Don't worry." Just develop a thick skin because behind misinformation, there are big tech companies and huge social media platforms. Please don't call them the media. Le Monde, Guardian, BBC, that's media, but not Instagram or Facebook. So, don't call them the media.
Do you know that it's impossible to completely switch off comments on Facebook because Facebook is focused on interaction, but for women, that interaction can mean harassment? Did you know that platforms impose show bans because they hide content related to women's health and sexuality in the UK? It is being discussed in parliament because companies dealing with this are losing a lot of money as their posts are being hidden. And finally, let's remember that the social media algorithm loves conflict, chaos, and polarization. This is why hate speech is pouring from all sides, and we are also arguing within our own bubbles.
Do you remember how 30 years ago we were scared of the clash of civilizations? We don't need to be, because if things continue like this, we will destroy ourselves in civil wars. There will perhaps be no barricades in the swing, but there will be real victims. The biggest victim will be democracy because if women are silenced, their voices will be weaker. And in the parliaments around the world, and also here in the room, parliament will not talk about domestic violence, rape, gossip, abortion, nurseries, or kindergarten.
Without a strong, equal voice from women, there is no democracy. We know that curtailing human rights, if it starts with one, will never stop at one group. Silencing women's rights will be only the beginning of weakening European countries and the entire European Union. So today, I would like to appeal to you. Take action.
We need legal regulations to combat cyberbullying and disinformation. We need to put pressure on Internet platforms to change algorithms so that they don't promote hate. Finally, we need to strengthen the position of women and girls in every possible area because the European body is the embodiment of a beautiful idea of freedom, peace, and community, and there is no place in it for marches of shame and lynching women. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much also for pointing out that this cyber violence against women is massive and uncoordinated, and it is against women, but especially against feminist women, the women that really want to change the framework, want to change society, and want to transform it. And I was just remembering how it is, yeah.
But it is not by chance. You were saying that messages are repeated. It was Michelle Obama who said it was Trump's, then it was Brigadier Macron, then it was President Sanchez's wife. So, yeah, since there are repeated messages and adapting to the different contexts, it is something we really need to absolutely stop. And now I would like to invite Anna Nass Bliswili, who is joining us online, to take the floor.
She is a reelected member of the tenth convocation of the Parliament of Georgia who resigned her mandate as a sign of protest against the elections that violated the democratic norms and standards set for free and fair elections. She's one of the most vocal supporters of Georgia's European integration and an award-winning human rights expert. So, thank you very much for joining us, even if online. I hope next time we'll be in person, and the floor is yours for 10 minutes. Thank you.
Speaker 13
Madam Chair, distinguished participants, thank you very much for dedicating this meeting to a very important topic in these times. Thank you for having me participate to share my experience and expertise, and to bring my voice, but more importantly, to bring the voice of Georgian women and men who, in recent months, have been targeted by particularly vicious disinformation campaigns, gender disinformation campaigns, including for fighting for Georgia's democratic and European future. Let me start my intervention by honoring those courageous women, including female political prisoners who are serving in Georgian prisons as we speak, under totally illegal and unfounded sentences, as well as the mothers, wives, and sisters of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. Those courageous politicians, journalists, and activists who are on the frontline of the fight for Georgia's European future. And, of course, iconic Zia Amaglobeli, who has become a very prominent face for Georgia's struggle for a European future, has herself, as she is in prison now, faced an absolutely unacceptable disinformation campaign as well. I want to make a few comments about the problem, which is very significant: gender disinformation and stereotyping.
Speaker 12
And I think part of the problem is that it is still not recognized by many beyond this room as a serious problem. I remember very well, and that was a painful experience. I have to say that when Georgia's EU candidacy conditions were discussed, the one condition which concerned gender was from the very beginning viewed as of secondary importance, not so important, not so critical. And I think that was a big mistake, and that showed how much work is needed to be done across the political spectrum and in wider society to understand that women's equality and women's rights are not issues of secondary importance. It is at the very heart of living democracy. And if women's rights are not protected, we cannot really talk about democratic resilience.
We cannot really talk about human rights. And I think we have to be very clear. Gender disinformation is not only about faking news, lies, or false information. Yes. It is violence against women, and it has to be treated as violence and nothing less than violence.
Because there are many living stories, including my own, that when you are targeted online, it goes beyond online and you are targeted offline as well. And this is unacceptable. We shall never accept violence as a side effect of being active in politics or, you know, hear this argument that being politically active or publicly active is your conscious choice. Yes. It is our conscious choice.
And what we have to tolerate is criticism, which is part of any democratic debate, but violence is not part of democracy. It should never be part of democracy. So, we shall never normalize it. We shall never consider it a normal part of political or public life. What I also want to say is that those who wage disinformation campaigns against women have at least two goals.
One is to silence women, sideline them, then push them out of active political participation. But if they cannot reach their goal number one, and if they show resilience, if they keep going and doing the work, then they move to goal number two. And goal number two is if they cannot influence you, they try to influence your auditorium by undermining your credibility, your professionalism, and your moral side in the eyes of the public. So, for anyone out there in the public sphere, would you agree that trust and credibility are extremely important resources we have? Actually, sometimes it is the only resource we have.
So, when it is attacked and undermined in the public eye, they cannot silence our voice, but they limit its impact and reach, and that's a serious problem. Therefore, we have to continue the work and make sure that those who have the power to fight this disinformation, which is very well noted here, coordinated and well funded, understand what is really at stake. But what I also want to make very, very clear in today's meeting is that gender disinformation campaigns are not only attacks against women. It is a geopolitical tool. It is a weapon that has been used against many societies, including my own, Georgia, by Russian hybrid warfare.
The topic of gender and women's rights has been weaponized to divide Jordanian society, to polarize and destabilize it, and to divert it from its European path. This discourse, which has been raging in Georgia not only by far-right groups, radical groups, or pro-crumbling groups, but more recently by the ruling party itself, has nothing to do with gender, family values, or cultural traditions. It is all about power and control. It is all about undermining democracy. It is all about alienating Georgians from Europe, diverting the country, and dragging it back to the sphere of Russian influence.
And Georgian people have been resisting that courageously and nonstop. And we deserve this courage and resilience to be acknowledged, but more so, we deserve help and support. Our courageous journalists, who have been investigating, among many other topics, the well-coordinated and well-funded Russian disinformation campaigns, deserve support. And this is very, very important because, as I said, it is not only about women. It is not only about human rights.
It is a geopolitical war, I would say, and women are being weaponized in this war. Finally, I would like to say that it's not by chance that recently two Jordan TV stations have been sanctioned by the United Kingdom for spreading Russian disinformation. And I hope these sanctions will be followed by further sanctions from the European Union and Georgia's democratic friends and partners. These have been the two TV stations that have been very active in spreading gender disinformation. So, you see how these things are intertwined and go hand in hand.
So, a few points about recommendations and what can be done. I would say it's extremely important for the EU to look at this issue not only from a women's rights perspective, but also as a hybrid threat. That means including all EU actors to come together and look at it from a security perspective as well as a human rights perspective. Equally important, I would say. And it's extremely important to have this issue in close consideration when discussing EU enlargement policies and democracy support programs.
It's also extremely important to have an ongoing dialogue with civil activists on the ground to understand the local context. But lastly, and here I will conclude, it's extremely important to nurture solidarity because in those very difficult moments when you are attacked, nothing matters more than the solidarity you get from your peers and from society. So, we have to strengthen resilience through solidarity. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
So, thank you. Thank you. We are with you. We are also nurturing this solidarity. Indeed, thank you for reminding us how everything is related to power and control, and this is going not only against women's rights but also against democracy.
And thank you for including the geopolitical dimension and how gender rights are being weaponized as a geopolitical tool, and that we should also take that into consideration, of course, when talking about the enlargement of the European Union. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And now, we move to Silvia Semenzin, adjunct professor at the University of Catalonia. She's a sociologist and international advocate specializing in online misogyny, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and platform governance.
So, thank you. Thank you very much for joining us. Knowledge-based decision making is, and it should also be, at the basis of this parliament. So, thank you very much for joining us, and you have the floor for 2 minutes.
Speaker 14
So dear Honenborough, members of the European Parliament, members of national parliaments, distinguished chair, and colleagues, thank you very much for the invitation. I follow all of your work on this very important topic. In my brief intervention today, I would like to focus on one core message that I believe is urgent and requires immediate action. Gender-based violence online is growing at a high speed as a direct consequence of the logics that shape the current digital ecosystem. The growth of technology-facilitated gender-based violence is a structural phenomenon deeply embedded in the digital architectures we use every day, which, increasingly, as other interventions have already highlighted, are threatening our democracies. I worked on mapping and analyzing online gender-based violence across platforms and countries for the past 8 years, and the current situation is more than alarming.
In the past two years alone, violence has more than doubled. Here, you can see some data. About 3 in 5 women and girls worldwide have experienced online harassment on social media. Nearly 1 in 2 women politicians in Europe have received death threats or threats of rape or physical assault, and 3 in 5 have been subjected to sexist attacks on social media. More than three in four women journalists report experiencing online violence while doing their job, and seven in ten women rights, human defenders, and activists have experienced online violence.
However, I also want to say that attention must not focus exclusively on highly visible women, but we must also address the everyday experiences of ordinary women who often lack a voice. Yes. Okay. Yes. Who often lack the voice and visibility, or the institutional protection needed to speak out.
I would also like to insist on the intersectionality dimension of this violence impacting women, women of color, Black women, LGBTQ+ women and individuals, mostly women, underage women, or women with disabilities. Today, violence evolves alongside technology. And behind the narrative of technology for good and the imperative of innovation, we're witnessing instead a sharp increase in multiple forms of abuse affecting women and girls on a daily basis. Among the many types of violence online that exist, the most widespread include the nonconsensual sharing of intimate images, online threats, cyberstalking, cyber harassment, doxing, online impersonation, disinformation campaigns, and AI-generated deepfakes, which have increased by more than 150% annually since 2022. Abuse today is coordinated, persistent, and cross-platform.
It is amplified by engagement-based algorithms and increasingly automated through artificial intelligence. This is happening with the complicity of large technology companies, which not only profit from violence and monetize misogynistic content, but also increasingly use platform governance as a mechanism to silence and marginalize voices that challenge dominant norms, stereotypes, and power structures. Let me briefly illustrate this with evidence from research across different platforms. On TikTok, according to our research from the University of Dublin, multiple studies have shown how manosphere aesthetics are now entering mainstream youth culture through viral formats on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Today, it takes less than 23 minutes for the platform to recommend misogynistic content to male-identified users, meaning that the platforms are delivering misogyny to users directly.
On Meta platforms, misogynistic groups and content repeatedly go viral, while feminist speech is frequently downrated or removed following changes in terms of service and moderation priorities introduced on January 25. Terms such as gender, feminist, or toxic masculinity are increasingly shadow banned or penalized, while misogynistic and transphobic slurs are often framed as free speech. As you can see in this presentation, in these slides, doxing or image-based sexual abuse are considered in line with terms of service. In January, together with my NGO AI Forensics, we also investigated x AI's Grok system. By analyzing more than 20,000 images generated by Grok and 50,000 user requests, we found that 53 images contained individuals in minimal attire, of which 81% were women. This demonstrates how generative AI can reproduce and scale misogynistic and sexualized representations to extreme levels.
Moreover, in my ongoing research on Telegram, yes. Slow. Slow. Okay. Yes.
Speaker 14
Okay. Sorry. In my ongoing research on Telegram, we documented closed groups coordinating harassment campaigns, doxing, and image-based sexual abuse, facilitated by the sense of impunity and security that the platform provides. These networks and channels, as you can see in the slides, are flourishing across Europe, including Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Portugal, and impacting millions of women and girls every day. Violence moves seamlessly across platforms, while policies and protections do not.
We're witnessing the mainstreaming and normalization of aggressive and misogynistic cultures that were previously confined to fringe communities. These cultures contribute to the radicalization of young men, and boys are actively targeted as consumers of this toxic ecosystem. As violence increases, research shows that women and girls either adapt to algorithms and embrace stereotypes, or they self-censor and withdraw from online spaces entirely. As a result, public debate becomes increasingly male-dominated and progressively aligned with the political and economic interests of Silicon Valley, whose lobbying efforts against EU regulation now directly target policymakers, civil society organizations, researchers, and advocates working on digital rights and gender equality. The recent Epstein files also remind us that sexual abuse and impunity are often embedded in elite networks that intersect with finance, politics, and big tech.
This is why online violence must be understood as a democratic and political issue, long before it is framed solely as a matter of individual safety. I want to say that today, I speak not only as a researcher but also as a survivor of image-based sexual abuse. This pushed me to action and also gave me direct insight into how institutional gaps are experienced in practice. Survivors face fragmented reporting systems that protect abusers while rendering their experiences invisible. Jurisdictional barriers obstruct prosecutions.
Moderation decisions are opaque and inconsistent, and violence circulates unchecked. This produced structural impunity through the privatization of justice, where terms of service increasingly replace the rule of law. But fundamental rights cannot depend on corporate goodwill. The future of our democracy simply cannot be left in the hands of large technology companies. So let me conclude with some concrete action points.
For the European Parliament, I would like to highlight three priorities, if I may. First, the promotion of digital regulation through a gender lens, which has already been addressed. Technological regulations, such as the AA Act, should be understood through a more gender-sensitive lens and include provisions related to nonconsensual intimate images and sexual abuse against minors in AI models. EU digital regulation must also extend through services like Telegram and similar platforms operating outside effective oversight, which currently provide safe spaces for the coordination of online attacks and work as repositories of illegal content. These environments must be brought within the EU regulatory scope as soon as possible.
Second, fund survivor-led digital infrastructure at the European level. This includes evidence preservation tools, legal and technical support, and cross-border complaint mechanisms. These initiatives should be supported through dedicated EU funding lines, alongside sustained investment in gender and digital research, to guarantee independent data access. And third, institutionalize feminist expertise in tech governance, which requires a permanent advisory mechanism within the European digital policy processes and structured consultation with survivor-led organizations and movements instead of a one-off engagement. And to conclude, for national parliaments, priorities should include a specialized prosecutor for digital gender-based violence, fast-track judicial procedures, harmonized evidence across member states in line with the European directive, and mandatory training for police and judges on digital sexual and gender-based violence.
Moreover, publicly funded platforms to support survivors, offering legal, psychological, and technical aid, are also necessary to support all those organizations that today are struggling to survive because they operate on a voluntary basis and with few resources. Online violence against women is already changing who feels entitled to speak, participate, and lead. But I think this Parliament has the power to change that. Your decision will determine whether Europe protects women's voices or allows them to be systematically driven out of public life in a climate of impunity for perpetrators, including big tech companies. The moment for action is now.
Speaker 1
So, thank you. Thank you very much. Our power as parliament is the power of society. So, if civil society is powerful, we are powerful as well. So thank you very much for highlighting how important the regulation we are doing here in the European Parliament is.
You just mentioned, obviously, to enforce the essays, what we are. And also, thank you very much for bringing feminist research to the floor, as I was mentioning before, because it is very much under attack. So how important is it to still have women in decision-making in politics, in knowledge generation, and also in big tech, which has been mentioned a few times? And I moved to our next speaker, Julie Guisha, a digital safety government affairs manager at Microsoft, where she works closely with safety teams to enhance regulatory compliance, use, and well-being. So, the floor is yours.
And also, probably, you can take some of the comments being made to the business case or to how the model is provoking this more violence, and what we can do also from the private sector to combat this violence. So, thank you very much. The floor is yours for ten minutes.
Speaker 18
Thank you so much. I'll do my best to address the comments and suggestions that were raised. But let me first start by saying, I couldn't agree more with the list of recommendations that you just outlined. I thought they were extremely relevant, and I would also implore both members of the European and national parliaments to take these on. So, please don't hesitate to give me a signal if I go over, but I'll try and address all these.
But first, thank you so much for inviting Microsoft. Honorable Chair, members of the European and national parliaments, honorable guests. Thank you for inviting Microsoft to speak in the House of Europe. Let me start by saying how grateful we are to be invited to share our insights into these conversations and to contribute to the fight against sexism, misogyny, and the many ways they manifest themselves both for girls and women, but also online and offline. So, violence against women and girls is one of the most persistent human rights challenges of our time. We often refer to it within Microsoft as "old harms, new tools" because it cuts across borders, generations, and social contexts, and most importantly, it is not allocated to a single space.
It follows women into their homes, their workplaces, their political and public lives, and increasingly into their digital environments. As our societies become increasingly digital, the boundaries between the online and offline worlds have all but disappeared. Digital spaces are now integrated into how we work, how we live, how we participate in democracies, how we express ourselves, and how we socialize. And when these spaces are misused, the consequences are not solely virtual. They're deeply real, and that's something we take extremely seriously at Microsoft.
In the context of this technological growth, and particularly when artificial intelligence enters the picture, we find that AI and technology itself are not necessarily the root cause of these issues, but they are reshaping how existing harms are inflicted, how they scale, and continually turn into weapons against women and girls. It is our shared responsibility to address these harms. And because I only have a few minutes left, I'll focus my intervention today on how Microsoft thinks about these challenges within our services, particularly in the realm of AI, and how we propose to work together to collectively address them. So let me first give you a few words to highlight how we're experiencing these types of harms. So we've been noticing violence against women spreading for decades now.
We have understood it ever since we entered the consumer online space as a structural and whole-of-society challenge. It's rooted essentially in existing power imbalances, misogyny, and social norms, as the previous speakers have alluded to, but we're seeing now that AI is radically amplifying these. And none are as true as the preexisting harm, excuse me, of nonconsensual intimate imagery sharing, which is often referred to colloquially as revenge porn. So the evidence shows that even before the onset of generative AI, the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate imagery sharing predated AI. A report by Sensity AI found that in 2019, before ChatGPT ever entered our lives, 96% of deepfakes that were created were pornographic in nature.
And of those, 96%, 99% were women and girls. So how do we address this enormous, large-scale problem? We know that this content has long been used to shame, to harass, and to extort the person who is depicted, whether it's real or purely made with AI or synthetic means. The release, and even the threats to release, such imagery have long and deeply documented impacts on the victims, including emotional, reputational, and economic consequences. Once it occurs, we know that the harm is virtually irreparable.
Once the images have been shared, or even threatened to be shared, they can be distributed widely across the web. So, what can be done, and what have we done at Microsoft to address this problem as it manifests itself on our services and platforms? So, even though we know that this harm needs to be addressed collectively, we have a responsibility to do our very best to address it within our services. We have heard concerns from survivors, experts, and other stakeholders that user reporting, the act of an individual reporting that something has occurred to them or someone they know, doesn't scale effectively to the size of the problem. So, we have tried to address this by launching a new partnership on our search product, which is called Microsoft Bing.
So, in the spirit of addressing the scale of this problem, we announced a new partnership with a UK NGO called Stop NCII, or Stop Nonconsensual Intimate Imagery. And we launched this in 2024, and we've been piloting a victim-centered approach to detection in Bing, our search engine, ever since. So StopNCII is essentially a platform that enables victims and survivors of nonconsensual intimate imagery to create what's called a hash. So think of it like a digital fingerprint of a given image. So if someone were to take your likeness, use a Nudify tool or a Nudify app to modify you against your will, again against your consent, you can report that image to us.
We will hash it to create that digital fingerprint, and then we share the databases of these hashes across the partners of that NGO. What we can do is ensure that within our search results for Bing, none of those hashes will ever reappear. So it tries to prevent the dissemination of harm once it has already occurred by putting victims and survivors at the center of reporting. But, of course, this is just one piece of a wider problem. To holistically address a problem as pervasive as nonconsensual intimate imagery, we need to address the harm across the entire life cycle.
So, you need to start essentially with your policy. So, how do you allow or not allow something in your terms of service? For us at Microsoft, ever since 2015, we have not allowed the creation or dissemination of nonconsensual intimate imagery, whether it's real or created entirely with artificial intelligence. We also do not allow any content on our platform that praises, supports, or requests the creation of these images. So once you've set your policy, you then need to put your best efforts forward to try to prevent the harm from occurring in the first place.
For these purposes, we at Microsoft have deployed what we call red teaming, which is very thorough testing across different interpretations of your AI systems. We have also introduced what we call adversarial training, which is when you specifically try to break the safeguards of an AI system, as well as AI impact assessments both internally and externally. Once, you've tried your best to prevent the harm from occurring in the first place. It will very likely still occur because, as we know, badly intentioned individuals will try their very best. So, then you need to enforce your policies.
To do so, we have state-of-the-art content moderation to remove the content. And then, finally, you need to support victims and survivors, share educational resources, and promote cultures of respect online. Because I only have 30 seconds left and we are in the heart of EU lawmaking, let me close by giving a very short few recommendations. So, at Microsoft, we always say that we don't need the law to do the right thing. However, the law is always quite helpful in ensuring that the entire ecosystem is going to be just as responsive as you are.
To that end, there are a few things that we can do. The first is making sure that we are ratifying and implementing new and modernized penal codes that meaningfully create rules about what's illegal. Because once it's illegal, you can launch the DSA, and we can take it down much more quickly. So that's the first, and we implore all members of national parliaments to ratify the directive and to thoroughly implement the directive on violence against women and domestic violence. And the second is to ensure that unification, so if we're referring to this harm, it is meaningfully prohibited as a practice in the AI Act under the Omnibus.
Here, we are supportive of these efforts as they have been introduced in the European Parliament because it can be an important step to limiting this harm at scale. We have recommended specific amendments to that end. One of the key points is recognizing that compliance with the prohibition should be demonstrated through a combination and a clear contractual prohibition. So, we have some of these recommendations here, if I can give a shameless plug for our white paper. If you're interested, please come find me afterward, and I can give you that.
So to conclude, I apologize for going a little bit over. While my intervention today focused on synthetic nonconsensual intimate imagery sharing, that challenge, as you know, is only one grain of sand in a much wider problem. Technology must not only prevent harm, but it must also actively expand opportunities for women. We must invest in digital literacy, in skilling, in confronting bias in data, and in fighting disinformation so that technology reflects the diversity of our societies. This is a responsibility we take seriously as a technology provider, as an employer, and as a partner to policymakers. We believe Europe's leadership on gender equality and digital innovation can and should go hand in hand.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your speech, your words, and Microsoft's commitment. Thank you very much also for liking our regulation, the DSA, the Direct Violence Against Women and Artificial Intelligence Act. I was just listening to you, that the data you were providing before, generative AI has sent 96% of content was pornographic and 99% was related to women.
We also have some data from our European Parliament Research Service regarding their sources, the Security Hero Step State of Deepfakes Report 2023. It is included that deepfake videos by content type are 98% pornographic and 99% target women. So, the numbers are the same. So that means that we are indeed addressing a problem that goes beyond artificial intelligence. It's just that it is exponentially growing and more harmful now that the problem lies at the end in society.
So, I'm really thankful because we don't only need societal pressure. We don't only need knowledge from media, from academia, from regulation, good regulation and good policies, but also good policies and good practices from the private sector. It was the commissioner saying before, "We need men for this battle, and we also need the private sector in order to win this battle." And now, last but not least, I would like to give the floor to our last speaker, who is a very well-known person in this committee. And she will speak last because she will offer us a horizontal, European view of these issues to help us tie together everything we have heard so far.
So I'm very happy to welcome once more here the European Parliament, Caroline Schilli, director of the European Institute for Agenda Equality, AGES. So, thank you very much for being with us once more, and the floor is yours for 10 minutes. Thank you.
Speaker 19
Good morning, dear Chair and dear colleagues. Much has been said today, and rightly so, about the scale, seriousness, and human cost of violence in the digital age. We have heard from the different speakers the extent to which gender equality is under pressure. And when we hear it repeatedly, it can start to sound like rhetoric, but it is not. And it feels particularly timely that we are having this discussion just as the new EU gender equality strategy for 2026-2030 is being launched.
Because if the roadmap for women's rights is anything to go by, the strategy should aim to protect women from digital violence, counter disinformation, and challenge stereotypes as fundamental ways to safeguard our democracy. As the last speaker here today, I want to underline what the evidence tells us about where the principles of gender equality are under the greatest strain, and what that means for legislative and oversight work. Our resilience is tested every single day. As technology advances, new forms of harm emerge, like deepfakes that target women and girls, silencing voices and eroding trust. In this shifting global landscape, the fight for gender equality and the protection of our democracies becomes more complex and more urgent.
And the two are inseparable. Democracy cannot function without gender equality. Gender equality is an essential pillar of democracy, ensuring fairness, participation, social well-being, and inclusive governance. So, gender equality cannot exist while women's voices are silenced, whether that is because of gender stereotypes, disinformation, or violence. One of the clearest stress tests for gender equality and democracy today is the digital space, where gender disinformation and technology-facilitated abuse are increasingly used to silence women and distort democratic participation.
My agency's evidence shows that digital space not only mirrors but also amplifies structural inequalities. Violence against women in public life, which has long been recognized as a barrier to participation, is taking on digital forms. Harassment, threats, smear campaigns, and targeted disinformation. This abuse, as we heard, is often gendered and sexualized. It targets women who are visible: politicians, journalists, activists, and experts.
And its purpose is not only to harm but also to push women out of public debate. And more than that, it turns women off from the idea of entering public life. And when that happens, democracy loses diversity and trust. The EU's vision of a union of equality is far from reality. The gender equality gains, which have taken a lifetime to achieve, are now on wafer-thin ice against the global rise in aggressive antigenderities, which seek to undermine our hard-fought efforts.
We have all heard about the growing influence of online misogynistic subcultures, often referred to as the manosphere. And this network of online communities, often packaged as a space to support men's health and well-being, is often a hostile environment where anti-gender rhetoric thrives. And what I want to say here is that our research also shows it's mostly young men aged between 18 and 24. So, young generations, future generations. Since this is all online, these harmful norms spread like wildfire.
And this is exactly why I hope that the new gender equality strategy will treat the safety and participation of women in public and political life as a democratic priority, with concrete action against gender-based disinformation and online violence, so that visibility never has to come at the cost of safety. Now that I bring up safety, digital platforms are essential for democratic participation. But without effective safeguards, transparency, and gender-sensitive moderation, this can also become an environment where harm escalates. Robust evidence is essential to tackle the issue. My agency and the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights just this week released a deeper analysis of the main results of the EU survey on gender-based violence, with voices and experiences from over 115,000 women across the European Union.
This analysis reveals the sinister ways in which digital tools are used in the continuum of violence against women. Let's start with the workplace. Seven percent of every working woman in the EU has experienced sexual harassment at work involving online tools, such as explicit messages or unwanted advances via social media. And then, outside the workplace, data from 8 member states indicate that 11.7% of women have experienced sexual cyber harassment. In those same countries, 8.5% of women report cyberstalking.
But the data also tells us something equally important: the consequences. A quarter of women in the EU who have experienced stalking changed their phone number, email address, or closed their social media accounts. Nearly 3 in 10 take protective measures, such as avoiding going out alone, changing routes to work or school, or carrying something to protect themselves. And 15.7 percent change their place of residence, job, or place of study, or stop working or studying altogether. Evidence like this is precisely what is shaping the EU's next steps.
I hope that the new strategy will reinforce action against cyber violence and strengthen platform accountability. Shifting the burden away from women having to change their lives, and towards prevention, enforcement, and responsibility where it belongs. Digital violence does not stand alone. It intersects with gender stereotypes and disinformation that undermine women's credibility and reinforce unequal power structures. Gender-based disinformation often questions competence, focuses on appearance, or portrays women leaders as illegitimate.
These narratives can spread quickly, sometimes amplified through networks that thrive on polarization and hostility. The consequences go far beyond individual harm. When women withdraw from public discourse, when candidates decide not to run, and when voices are silent, democratic debate becomes narrower and less representative. Democracy relies on participation, trust, and inclusion. Without them, it becomes weak.
And this is where we must also confront a persistent problem: who we hold responsible. Too often, the burden still falls on women to protect themselves, to withdraw, and to adapt their behavior. It's all on the women. But let's make something abundantly clear. Responsibility lies with those who stalk, bully, and harass.
Shame needs to switch sides. The powerful words of Giselle Pelico, who described how she initially blamed herself and felt afraid to act. Her experience reminds us that shifting the focus from victims to perpetrators is not only a matter of justice. It is a precondition for change. It is so well documented that when victims internalize blame, they are less likely to receive justice or support.
Coming back to turning evidence into action, here is what we know to be true. Firstly, we need better data: harmonized, gender-disaggregated information that helps us understand trends and measure progress. Secondly, platform accountability is crucial, with transparent moderation and risk assessments that consider gender impacts. Thirdly, victims must have access to effective support and remedies. And finally, prevention is how we end gender-based violence.
Education and digital literacy can challenge standard gender stereotypes and build resilience to disinformation, especially among younger generations. None of this can be achieved by a single actor alone. Governments, EU institutions, platforms, civil society, educators, and researchers all have a role to play. The digital ecosystem is interconnected, and so must be our response. The EU has already taken important steps.
Our task now is to ensure that gender equality is not treated as an afterthought but as a core principle of democratic resilience. Now, a simple thought to end with. A digital space that is safe for women is a digital space that is stronger for democracy. By confronting gender stereotypes, countering disinformation, addressing harmful online cultures, and preventing violence, we are doing two things in one: protecting individual rights and strengthening democracy itself. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much, once more, for sharing with us such important knowledge and how crucial it is to have the best data and knowledge for the best policymaking, regulation, societal change, and awareness. So, thank you very much. And we will keep fighting to have the best budget for AGE and the best conditions for AGE. You could keep providing us with such important knowledge. And now, thank you to all of our guests.
And now, we move to the floor to our members of the European Parliament, as well as members from other chambers and other countries who are here with us today. And as usual, I'll start with EPP coordinator from Greece, Eleonora Meletti. Please, the floor is yours. Two minutes. I will really ask you to be on time.
Thanks. Thank you.
Speaker 21
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I've got pages and pages of notes here, but in any case, thank you very much to the speakers. I think we've said everything because this gender issue against women is, if you like, a wound in our society. And we have to be bold. We can see from the data that the cost of not tackling these problems is very high.
Speaker 20
We have other minorities, of course, that we must protect. I'd like to say that for 5 years, I worked as a journalist and also on television. I worked on television.
Speaker 20
Obviously, we came across phenomena such as hate speech in our job. And indeed, we have to take care of what is happening on the Internet with hate speech and the issues that hurt us on the Internet. I believe this affects women in other spheres where their competencies are placed in doubt. We have mechanisms, however, at our disposal to combat, for example, misinformation and disinformation. We have to take these measures so that we can deal with this.
We have to, therefore, work on the platforms and then educate people so that they are not victimized. Why has no one spoken about, for example, the criminalization of hate speech? There are rules. There are sanctions that exist. Why don't we therefore speak about the criminalization of this kind of speech on the Internet?
Speaker 21
We have women who are frightened and terrorized by what is happening. We have to punish them. And we now have to speak very clearly and strictly about what measures of criminalization we can adopt. Thank you.
Speaker 1
I know it's a topic very close to your heart, and indeed, we have to move in that direction. Can.
Speaker 22
I now welcome my socialist colleague, Susana Roth, who is head of the Gender Equality Committee in the Spanish Parliament. You have the floor for 2 minutes, Susana. Thank you, Lina, for your leadership and for this necessary space. I first of all want to share my support with all girls and women who, all over the world, are suffering because of war. We know that gender stereotypes, misinformation, and online violence are not isolated issues.
They are political tools that seek to undermine gender equality, institutional stability, and our democracies. If you silence or attack a woman online, democracy as a whole loses out. Spain has taken serious steps forward. We recently published the second act on gender violence. It was passed by everyone in the chamber except the far-right.
We also have recognition of digital violence as a form of gender-based violence, and we have a specific set of tools to deal with it. Recently, the Spanish government established a digital governance framework, which sets clear goals and rules for platforms. The aim is to ensure that social media sites are not places of impunity. Now, three priorities. One, we must recognize gender-based digital harassment as a structural issue for Europe.
Second, we must look at the algorithms. Algorithms must not spread hate or misinformation under the pretext of technological neutrality. Three, we must invest in digital literacy, which must be female-focused. Now we're talking about a cultural battle here on the Internet, and we need to have a clear democratic, regulatory, and political response to this issue. European democracy won't survive if women are cast out of the digital space.
I'm ending now. Digital Europe must be a Europe of rights, equality, and freedom for all of us.
Susana.
Thank you, Susana.
Speaker 1
It's not the very beginning, but what we are going to do is give the floor to one member of the European Parliament and later on to two members of the guest parliament. So now we stay in Iberia, let's say, because we are going to Portugal. And I would like to give the floor to Miss Paula Cardoso. He is also a committee chair and a member of the EPP. So, the floor is yours for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 23
Thank you very much. Let me also thank the Chair. Portugal is like the rest of Europe and the rest of the world. Wars, crises, economic difficulties, and trying to strike a work-life balance. And now, we see that women are affected more by all of these issues I have just raised.
And the digital issues we are talking about could affect democracy. We see online that there is polarization, misogyny, and even election manipulation. We mustn't forget the role that technology plays. If technology is used incorrectly, that's bad, but technology can also be an opportunity for girls and women. These channels and media are underpinned by algorithms that can affect women and girls, and democracies themselves could be affected.
Portugal recently approved a law to protect children online. It restricts their access to certain platforms and places more accountability on the shoulders of platforms. This is the way forward. These are the kinds of policies we should have. And that means we have to take on these giants.
We have to take on the big, powerful interests. I have an appeal. I call on the EU, where diversity has always been so important. We must have the courage to tackle all these diverse and varied challenges. But it's about defending human rights and the rule of law.
If we do that, then we can move forward. And we, in Portugal, already have legislation. We know that laws on their own are not enough. Laws don't solve everything, but they're a start. So we have to monitor, protect, and teach so that our children, our young people, can be protected online because they are our citizens, the citizens of the future.
And we see that there is so much terrible language and so much violence online, and it's really affecting young people. So, the EU really needs to tackle this issue. Thank you.
Speaker 1
And now we go back to the European Parliament, to the coordinator of the Socialist and Democrats group from Poland, Johanna Sherig Wilhus. The floor is yours for 2 minutes. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 25
Lina. And thank you all, thank you ladies for your interventions. We all know where the problem lies. Sylvia said that she has been researching it for eight years, and she saw how quickly violence on the Internet has been growing. I'm feeling this personally because I've been active in politics for 13 years now.
Speaker 24
And I remember how it was back in the day, and how things are today. We are being ridiculed. We are being assessed. That has always been the case. The representative of Microsoft said that we have been attacked, but only the tools change.
It is indeed the case. Violence on the Internet has been growing rapidly, affecting each of us present in this room. It's enough for us to post on social media, and immediately you have a host of people, trolls, threatening us, attacking us, assessing us, no matter what we say and however we appear. What is important is that there must be someone behind this. In our Member States, we know what to do: we legislate, we implement rules, but it is not up to us to be held responsible.
Those behind Big Tech are responsible: Grok, Meta, Instagram, and so on. Though they are responsible, the fish spoils from the head, as we say in Poland. So, they have to understand themselves what potential threat is connected. And the representative of Microsoft said that we need a certain way of being able to prove it. I'm supposed to prove that I was attacked, that I was ridiculed, and that someone threatened to take my life.
It's enough to open Twitter, Facebook, or any platform, and the proof is omnipresent. It's big tech that should be held accountable, and not us being bound to prove things. I would like us to invite representatives of Facebook, Instagram, X, and Grok to parliament; let them listen to this debate long enough so that they finally understand where the problem lies. Thank you.
Speaker 1
We take this suggestion on board. And now we move to national parliaments, and, well, the Senate, in this case, to Romania. And I would like to give the floor to Olga Onea from the Romanian Senate. So the floor is here for two minutes, please.
Speaker 26
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, I come from Romania. This is a country in which there was a particular role for women during communism; therefore, we have a certain tradition in our country. Now, what we have to say is that this is not an ideological issue, and the women are not necessarily in one category. They can be mothers; they can be professionals.
However, there are some dangers for them in the digital sphere, such as a lack of respect. In fact, many women are manipulated. There are information campaigns that discriminate against them. These are facts. Women, again, are judged on their appearance.
Democracy means that there should be dignity for all. And this, therefore, undermines democracy. We should not be ashamed of women carrying out their role as mothers. They want to live without digital violence. I believe that we have to have a strong role for women.
And in Europe, a Europe which protects women, I believe in democracy and the institutions. And there is a manipulation organized against women, and that must be eliminated from the future of Europe. Women don't need labels. What they need is respect. And we will do our best to defend this in Romania.
Speaker 1
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. And now, back to Greece. And I would like to give the floor to Maria Antonio, the chair of the...
Commit.
Speaker 1
Equality Committee at the Hellenic Parliament, from the EPP Group. Thank you. The floor is here for 2 minutes.
Speaker 28
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all. I will speak English. Colleagues,
Good morning. I'd like to convey to you the wishes of our committee in Greece, which I preside over, the Human Rights Committee. Today, we are talking about an issue which is very important. We've heard from the speakers, and they gave very interesting and full accounts of the situation. I have some comments on Greece in particular.
AI is not something that is neutral in character. And therefore, we also have to take into account who actually uses AI and who designs AI. Other factors are also involved; therefore, And this obviously all has an effect on women. In the digital sphere, we have to be very careful about inequalities, which is still not the case.
We have to combat violence against women. And indeed, there should be criminalization because other forms of violence are criminalized. And we have to better survey and monitor the Internet for all kinds of violence and harassment. We also have to look at how, in Greece, for example, we can use other experiences from AI and set up a proper network, if you like, to combat these inequalities that arise. The action plan which exists in Greece has a priority of combating this kind of crime and tackling misinformation, in particular gender-based misinformation.
We therefore want to participate in this struggle against violence towards women. Thank you.
Speaker 29
We go back to the European Parliament, and I give the floor to Margarita de la Pizzacarion, who is the spokesperson for the Patriots for Europe. Thank you, Chair. Thank you to members and mass members of national parliaments. Let me share a few thoughts with you. We're talking about defending women in public spaces, apparently.
But what if we are women who disagree with this current gender trend? Our voice is not important, or is it worse? What about if you want to silence us, our so-called anti-gender movements? So European funds can't go to organizations that support maternity. Isn't that a step backward?
Is that neutral? The commission says that there cannot be attacks on sexual and reproductive health rights, but we have different views on abortion. Some of us support life. If a woman is pregnant and facing difficulties, she should be supported. She might not have a job, or she might not have the support of the father.
Should we use the European Social Fund to pay for abortions? And we're also accused of xenophobia if we're worried about women being safe and if we're worried about uncontrolled immigration, which is allowing in a lot of people who are not dealt with by the police or the courts. You know, there's been an increase in attacks on our streets, and we are told that is fake news. Europe is now a place of impunity. We don't hand down sentences, and we don't protect our borders.
So, we're putting ourselves at risk. So, where is the pure democratic plurality of voices? I'm, you might say, allowed to come here and say this, aren't I? But we're also talking about European funds. European funds won't go to people like us who have different views, so it's just a question of time.
Speaker 1
And now, back to national parliaments. I would like to give the floor to Maria Lugarich from the Crashan Parliament, chair of the Gender Equality Committee, and a member of the Socialist and Democrats group. So the floor is yours for two minutes.
Please. Thank you.
Speaker 30
Thank you very much, Lina. Dear colleagues, when talking about women's rights in the digital age, we are not talking about something abstract. We're talking about real women who, after one publication on social networks, get thousands of insults; politicians who are attacked not because of their arguments but because of their looks. We're talking about journalists who are being threatened with rape. Digital space needs to be included in democracy, but too often, it is a space where women are trying to be silenced.
Speaker 32
Disinformation is targeted, and violence takes on new shapes, more brutal and anonymous than ever before. The consequences are worrying. Women are leaving the public space, which weakens democracy. The Croatian ombudsman warns about the increase in gender violence, including harassment and the perpetuation of stereotypes in public discourse. Also, decision-making includes differences in salaries, and digital violence not only reflects but enhances the existing differences.
Therefore, today, we need to have strong mechanisms to protect girls and women from online violence. We need digital platforms to be completely responsible, and we need to systematically educate children from the earliest age to talk about stereotypes and to tell them that humiliation is not an acceptable method. If we let women be harassed to remove them from public spaces, then we are making democracy weaker. Therefore, this is an important topic for the quality of our democracy. If we need to have thicker skin as women to participate in public life, then it is not our problem, but the problem of the system which tolerates this.
Speaker 31
We need to say clearly that the digital space needs to be a space of rights and not a threat. Democracy is as valuable as it is to women, and we need to have the necessary legal framework and educational policies, which will make the digital area an area of rights. Democracy, which does not protect women, is not full democracy. We need to act together and act now. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. And now we go to Malta, Graziella Atarprevi, a member of the Maltese parliament. The floor is here for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 34
Thank you. We have all acknowledged here that across Europe, technologies have transformed the way that we communicate and also how we participate in public life. They have, yes, created new opportunities for women's empowerment, but they have also magnified long-standing inequalities. We have seen that harmful gender stereotypes now spread online with unprecedented speed, shaping public attitudes and influencing public debate. In Malta, as in many member states, we see the consequences clearly.
Speaker 33
Women in public life—politicians, journalists, and activists—face disproportionate levels of online harassment. They also face hate speech and intimidation. Digital violence, including cyberstalking and cyberbullying, has become a powerful tool for silencing. While Smolza acknowledges that Europe has taken important steps, such as the Digital Services Act, the EU strategy on combating gender-based violence, and the work of the European Institute for Gender Equality, which provide essential tools, we are committed to advancing these priorities. We are strengthening our national frameworks and laws.
In fact, we have introduced a law against cyber harassment and cyberbullying, which today is a crime in Malta, and this carries severe penalties, including prison sentences and high fines. We are also committed to improving digital literacy and reporting mechanisms. However, I must underline that no Member State can address these challenges alone. Digital harms cross borders, and so must our response. I urge that we coordinate monitoring of gender disinformation, enforce stronger measures against online abuse, and sustain investment in digital skills.
We must also ensure that emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, do not reinforce bias or discrimination. Together, we can make this happen. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. And now we move back to the European Parliament to return to Sweden. I would like to give the floor to the renew coordinator, Abeha Salani. Please, the floor is yours for 2 minutes.
Speaker 35
Thank you, Madam Chair. Dear guest speakers, also guests from the national parliaments, thank you for being here and for your presentations. It is so important that we also have representatives from the platforms to be part of this conversation. But if we are to seriously talk about the issue of digital violence against women, we also need to recognize that this is not only a technological issue. It's a political issue.
Speaker 37
Across Europe, we see increasingly organized anti-gender movements targeting women in politics, public life, journalists, even judges, and activists. These campaigns spread disinformation, mobilize harassment, and attempt to push women out of the public space. And we should be honest about something else. The European Parliament, inside this house of democracy, will repeatedly see the same political forces voting against measures aimed at protecting women's rights and gender equality. Those same ecosystems are often the ones amplifying misogynistic narratives online and fueling hostility against women in public life.
So, when we speak about digital violence against women, we must recognize that these attacks are not random. They are often organized, politically driven, and motivated. Europe has already taken important steps through the DSA and the DMA. These frameworks give us powerful tools to address systemic risks, platform accountability, and the amplification of harmful content. But the reality is that implementation remains insufficient.
Speaker 36
The provisions on systematic risk assessments, algorithmic transparency, and mitigation of harmful amplification must be applied much more robustly if they are to make a real difference for women facing coordinated harassment online. The next step must, therefore, be focusing on stronger enforcement, deeper transparency, and closer cooperation between platforms, European institutions, and national parliaments. Because when harassment campaigns are coordinated, amplified, and politically weaponized, they are not simply cases of online abuse. They are attacks on democratic participation. And when women are pushed out of public debate through intimidation and harassment, it is not only women who lose.
Democracy also loses. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. We stay in Sweden, but then we go to the Swedish parliament to a different group, ECR. And then I would like to give the floor to Mr. Michael Rubestad. Please, the floor is yours for 2 minutes.
Speaker 39
Thank you very much. I am happy to be speaking my language. Thank you for organizing this extremely important meeting, and thank you very much to the members of the panel. It's true that digital services have made this situation more difficult. We have different perspectives being portrayed, and different people can participate in the debate.
Speaker 38
But in order for democracy to function, we need to be able to participate in the public debate without feeling threatened. If you cannot express yourself, then you lose a voice, and this is important for our democracy. I think we also need to have a look at the responsibility held by major platforms. Thank you very much, Microsoft, for being present today and for all the work that you do. In terms of practice, denouncing abusive practices sometimes does not lead to concrete action.
We see misogynistic content remaining online, and this sometimes leads to violence. So, just denouncing it isn't enough. We need to ensure that this leads to action rather than just rhetoric. Some of this negative rhetoric still seems to be acceptable, even though it has a negative effect on democratic practices. The platforms need to take their responsibility seriously and to a greater extent than they do at the moment.
This is an issue that concerns the whole of society, and equality is an issue that should concern all of us. We need to be firmer and insist increasingly on dealing with this huge problem. Thank you.
Speaker 1
So, thank you. Thank you very much. And now we can say we stay in Belgium because I would like to give the floor to Mariclaire Mumbi, senator in Belgium from the Renew Group. So, the floor is yours for 2 minutes, please.
Merci beaucoup.
Speaker 40
Thank you very much. I just wanted to thank everyone for organizing this debate. It's extremely interesting. I also wanted to emphasize that the only way you can silence women is not just via threat, but also by taking away access to digital tools and their capacity to use the digital sphere. In Europe, there are still many women who, for reasons of poverty, do not have access to online platforms.
And to some extent, they are therefore not able to take up space on the digital platforms. Social networks have been mentioned. We've talked about the responsibility held by those who troll others on the Internet and men who do so, but there's been less talk about the responsibility of public services and governments who are making access to public services digital without taking into account the fact that women, often not having the same purchasing power as men, sometimes find themselves in the situation where they don't have access to this public space. I also wanted to talk about another matter. We've spoken about a lot of these issues, problems, and measures which sound quite theoretical, but we haven't really talked about what actually is working.
Now, sadly, the previous speaker who spoke about this from the European network is not here. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that there are 30 countries here to ask whether any of the representatives can share something that has really worked well in practical terms in your countries and has improved the situation regarding the way in which women feel safe on public platforms. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
Move back to the European Parliament to the Greens Group, Anna Strolenberg. The floor is yours for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 41
Thank you. And thank you, first of all, for organizing this session today with this topic because I think it's very much needed. And last week, within the committee on women's rights and gender equality, we also adopted a report on the effects, making sure that the negative effects on young girls and women are combated. So, I think the importance also rises in this committee. And to put it very clearly, I also believe that the online world has become a new frontier of misogyny and violations of women's rights, and we need to recognize and address this.
Because we have seen today that the numbers are rising of girls having issues with body image, sextortion, doxing, deepfakes, and all those examples that we have. But I have the feeling that while we know this, sometimes it feels like we just accept what the online world is, and this is not something we should passively agree with. We should really make sure to understand that it can be better. And I want to thank all the speakers for giving examples of how to do this. If there is some room, I would also like to ask some questions later on.
They might be able to answer these questions. First one is maybe to our adjunct professor, Caroline, sorry, from Aiger. It's about the fact that I've read many researchers on young men getting radicalized and thinking that feminism has gone too far. But is there already research showing that there's a clear link between radicalization online and, because of this online environment, people think differently about women? And maybe to the journalists present with us, I wanted to ask: how do you look at the right to anonymity online and the effective persecution of online crimes such as gender-based violence?
Speaker 44
Where is the "How does it work together?" section? And the last question that I have for any one of you is about how to educate boys, because we know that we have to invest in this. Are there already good examples of projects? I will visit a project in Amsterdam where they try to teach young men digital literacy and how it works online. But do you maybe have examples that we could also take into account? Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. And now, we move to the Dutch Senate, and I would like to give the floor to Dan Roberts, senator from S and D. So, the floor is yours for 2 minutes.
Speaker 43
Thank you so much, and thank you for organizing this conference. There's one important aspect that I want to underline in my contribution, and that is that the online conversation is organized and monitored by platforms largely in the hands of big tech companies based in the United States. Our democratic conversation takes place on big, highly commercial platforms governed by a few billionaires who happen to be best friends with an American bully with autocratic ambitions and encourage far-right parties in Europe. The result is online hate, misinformation, manipulation, threats, and sexism. I think it is of the utmost importance to build a really strong European public infrastructure, encouraging social and public values, supporting real public debate, safeguarding a healthy information service, and defending minorities' rights.
Speaker 42
We have to seriously invest in this public infrastructure. And secondly, let us support public initiatives that work bottom-up to counter the power of big tech, like the movement People Versus Big Tech and the Free Our Feeds movement. We, as politicians and public servants, must set the example and fight for democratic and public institutions and infrastructure. Let's join forces. Let's do it quickly.
We have no time to lose. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. And now we move back to the European Union, but inside our heritage in Europe, to the Norwegian parliament. And I would like to leave the floor to Liv Gustafsson. So, the floor is yours for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 52
Thank you, madam, and thank you to the Committee of Women's Rights for the invitation and for the opportunity to participate. It's been a good debate, and I just want to add the following to the debate. We must acknowledge the challenge we are seeing related to the sexualization and commercial influence online, which contribute to mental health problems among young girls. In some cases, as young as nine years old. There is no doubt that digital platforms must take their responsibility, but parents also have an important role to play.
Speaker 47
Government cannot take over the role of the parents. At the same time, we must be careful not to introduce regulations that are so strict that they highly hinder technology development. We need to find a reasonable balance. But remember, perverting harmful behavior always starts at home with the parents. In my view, the conclusion must, therefore, be clear.
Speaker 45
We need stricter penalties for those who engage in and are behind this type of online crime. We must go after the responsibility, not the victims. Introducing strict restrictions for everyone could take us in a direction that resembles regimes we do not wish to be associated with. We must acknowledge the challenge we are seeing related to sexualization and commercial influence online, which contribute to mental health problems in young girls. In my view, the conclusion is really clear.
Speaker 48
We have to stricter the penal lines so they engage in the fight against this type of online crime. We have to go after the response rate, not the victims.
Speaker 1
Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now back to the European Parliament EPP, Paolo Donachment, to cover all the floor issues for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 46
Thank you, Chair. I will speak in Portuguese. First of all, thank you for organizing this important event. Women's rights and democracy cannot be taken for granted. This is a daily battle that we are all responsible for fighting.
There are new challenges presented by the digital world and by AI, and we are increasingly concerned about what is happening. Sadly, we see more and more attacks on the dignity of women and on their rights. We cannot forget that 99% of deepfake sexual content is aimed at women. This is obviously completely unacceptable, and we can't turn a blind eye to it in the European Union. 70% of adult women are thinking twice about using social media because of the attacks they have faced, and 40% withdraw from the political space because of these same attacks.
It goes without saying that this is also an attack on democracy. That's why I want to ask a question. Should we not be able to identify who is behind digital content? Now, if someone is attacking someone online, you know, why would that go unpunished? We also need to look at the issue of consent.
Young people, young kids have to fully understand what consent is, so that has to be something they learn as part of their schooling. So, I have to ensure that women's dignity, participation, and equality are upheld because without that, we don't have a true democracy. Thank you very much again for organizing this event.
Speaker 49
We're still around Spain and Portugal, in Iberia. So, I give the floor to Franco Gonzalez, member of the Equality Committee for the PP in Spain. Chair, it's an honor to speak to this committee to defend something I truly believe in. Equality is also about freedom, security, and opportunities, and all of these conditions need to...
Speaker 49
Met. But there are tests today. There are more stereotypes, more polarization, and worse behavior online, and the aim is to intimidate and silence women. Sometimes women self-censor, excuse me, or they withdraw from the public eye. That's not democracy.
A recent survey showed us that some people are beginning to doubt gender equality. Young people think that gender equality is a kind of political manipulation, and gender is becoming a kind of ideological debate. But we have to be worried about protecting the rights. So, we cannot be resigned. We cannot throw in the towel.
We, in our parliament, recently passed a law on dealing with gender violence, which was approved by a broad majority, and we have further ancillary measures. And, of course, we also need to improve training and education. We need to have digital literacy based on evidence that involves girls and boys as part of the solution. The speaker has been asked to speak a bit more slowly. Second, we have to have zero tolerance when it comes to digital violence.
We need to bring down harmful content, and we need to work with the victims. And we have to have cross-border cooperation. Finally, we need to have policies that don't focus on polarization but instead focus on dialogue, including intergenerational dialogue with the youngest in our society. Second, final point: in this digital era, we must be firm against violence, and we must try to reach an agreement so that we can strengthen democracy.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Still in the Iberian Peninsula.
Of the Portuguese Parliament for the Patriots group. The floor is here for 2 minutes.
The other president.
Speaker 50
Chair, colleagues, talking about women's rights is the same as talking about democracy. Gender equality is a fundamental principle of the EU, and it has been enshrined since the Rome Treaty and reconfirmed in further treaties that aim to ban all violence against women. Today, there is a new battlefield: the digital battlefield. There is more cyberbullying, persecution, deepfakes, blackmail using personal photos, and even organized crime. All of this can destroy lives.
Many women have suffered sexual or physical violence, and that means women are less likely to enter politics, journalism, or be active in civil society. Each time we silence a woman, democracy loses out and loses its voice. That's why we must act urgently. Cyber violence needs to be clamped down on, particularly if it affects young people or prevents the victim from participating in public life. We need to have a special task force within the police that has the right tools so they can deal with this new kind of crime and AI crimes.
We must also focus on digital literacy and prevent online violence, and that has to start in schools through schooling. If you do something without the other's consent, that is a crime. Human dignity is nonnegotiable. We need political courage to point out that sometimes the digital space is not neutral, and it cannot be a place of impunity. We need to protect women so that we can protect all of Europe.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
And now we move back to the European Parliament to renew the group, Valerie Devaugh. The floor is here for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 51
I'm going to speak French.
Colleagues, elected representatives, ladies and gentlemen, social networks support increased social connections among young people, and our young women are paying a heavy price for this in terms of stereotypes, increased violence, and early exposure to negative influences. There's a very long list of difficult information received, including misogynistic dialogue also leading to potential suicide. And in this context, how can we continue to allow our children and young people to spend on average four hours a day on these platforms? I think it is incompatible with our collective responsibility to protect our young people. We have the responsibility to offer the youngest among us a good example to help limit exposure to subjects that would be dangerous for their health.
And I think that the political instability at the European level means that we need to have an age set for digital exposure. It's 15:00 in France. It's symbolic, and it is in line with our ambition to make Europe a place of the rule of law and democracy. And can we talk about digital democracy when adolescents are massively exposed to false information, as well as sexual and sexist violence? And would this not be an act of democratic sovereignty faced with the inexorable rise of excess data provided to the youngest among us?
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
To give the floor to Godel Liechens, senator from Renew Belgium, to discuss whether to go back to Belgium or to stay in Belgium.
Speaker 53
Yes. Thank you very much. Yes. I want to start by repeating something that Commissioner Labib said. She said, you know, gender violence is not a women's issue, and that's so true.
But let's look at the audience here, and let's also look at our panel of speakers. I mean, we should almost applaud the few men that are here. So, very welcome and very happy that the men are here because I want to say that we really need the men on board if we want to tackle this problem. First, without the men, it would be a very polarizing discussion. It would be men versus women, us against them, and we know from history what that can bring.
It's like you start a civil war among genders. But we also need the men on board. We need them to stand up, not for us vulnerable women, but to stand up for their own gender and for the positive gender role that masculinity can be. Because let's talk about those men and boys in the manosphere. We need more studies, but we know a little bit about what drives them and what makes them like this Misso content so much.
And that shows that we need a new role model for those men, that they need a good identity of masculinity because masculinity is not only a curse. It's not only toxic. It can be a very beautiful role, as you can have a nice gender role as a man: as a sports coach, as a father, as a caring boyfriend, or even as a heroic brother. We don't mind men being heroes or even knights. And I think that's a very important message to spread if we want to tackle those pushback organizations.
And, therefore, I say if we want to talk solutions, we, of course, need legislation. That's for sure, but it will not be enough. So, I think we need to fight with the same weapons, and that means we need large budgets for influencers, both male and female, to produce great content and the right information. So, don't panic. Get organized.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you. Good idea. And I have only two speakers left in my list, both from the Croatian parliament. So I will give, first of all, to Daniela Lasanovic, who is from the EPP Group.
The floor is here for 2 minutes, please.
Thank you.
Speaker 54
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to welcome all the colleagues present here at this very important event. Democracy today is not only present in election polls or parliamentary rows, but also in digital spaces and algorithms that shape public opinion. In this domain, unfortunately, women are still stereotyped, misinformed about, and subject to digital violence. Women's rights are not any type of special rights. They are fundamental human rights.
Speaker 55
Without full protection, we cannot have true democracy. When women are being silenced through threats via the Internet or reduced to stereotypes, discredited using false information, then it is not only one woman who is being attacked, but the core of democratic dialogue. Digital violence against women has new forms today: smear campaigns that are coordinated, manipulated imagery, false news, and sexist hate speech. They're especially affected when they are included in public life, journalism, and politics. The goal of these attacks is very clear: to discourage them from participating in public debate and decision-making processes.
Speaker 54
The Republic of Croatia is a member of the EU and is faced with these same challenges. Croatia has made important advances through its legislation on fighting violence against women and implementing European standards for the protection of human rights. It is clear that legislation needs to follow technological advancement, but society also needs to change its behavior patterns. Fighting stereotypes starts with education. We need to have digital literacy, which will not only teach how to use technology, but rather how to recognize manipulation, hate speech, and disinformation.
Speaker 56
Above all, we need to have the political will to defend fundamental human rights. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. And, last but not least, finally, yes. So, before going back to the Croatian parliament, there is Marit Malish from the Socialist and Democrats, Netherlands. You have the floor for two minutes, please.
Speaker 58
Yes. Thank you very much, Chair. Maybe I will not use the two minutes, but I want to share with you that, 10 years ago, I was a member of the parliamentary committee of the Council of Europe, and I wrote a report on online hate and cyber discrimination. And already back then, in our communications with some of the big platforms that exist, we found out that it's very difficult for them to acknowledge that they also have a role in fighting cyber discrimination and online hate. And already back then, one of the conclusions was that the way in which the Internet and social media are developing is completely different from the social media platforms and the ways in which they function that we see right now.
Speaker 59
We were seeing that it was actually forcing people out of the conversation, and I was sparked by one of the previous speakers who said there is self-censorship sometimes, that women do not feel the possibility to do what they need to do, especially those who are dependent on the public sphere for their work, like us politicians, but also women working in other public spheres where they need to show themselves, I don't know, as authors or as other people who need support from their constituents to do their job. And we see that on a day-to-day basis, this is becoming more and more difficult. And I was just checking back what I wrote ten years ago, and it's really, I think, heartbreaking that this is getting worse and worse, and that we really need to counter this. So thank you very much for organizing this today, and it's something that we need to work on day in and day out. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. Indeed, it is time for action. And last but not least, yes, now Radha Boric, member of the Quality Borough of the Croatian Parliament, Greens group. The floor is yours for 2 minutes, please.
Speaker 57
Hello, everyone. I'm not going to say hello to everyone, so as not to lose time. It's a little two minutes. Just to tell you that I'll switch to Croatian because I want you to hear how it sounds.
Speaker 57
When a male person speaks, women remain silent. This is a proverb that we have in Croatia, and I believe it is similar to proverbs in other languages. As a feminist linguist, I deal with language, stereotypes, and sexism, which are deeply rooted in languages and are perpetuated in reality, but have found a new, very successful existence online and are being turned into threats, mockery, and transformations that even lead to suicides, especially among young women, or murders. Some of you may have heard that a women's rights activist, Yara Mohammad, from Iraq, has been murdered recently because she did not keep silent. What is worrying is the brutalization that exists in reality. The brutalization of violence against women is sexually oriented, results in femicide, but it is also present online in sentences such as "she had it coming," "she should have kept her mouth shut," "she should have been shot in the head," and "she should be muzzled."
All these expressions used by perpetrators have become present online and are a problem for other women. Colleagues have already mentioned that education is necessary, education which will make everybody aware of how dangerous language is because it also produces violence and can lead to murders. Thank you.
Speaker 1
So, thank you. Thank you for reminding us how important language is and how important, in the end, it is that we talk among each other because, like this, we can see that this is not a personal problem for each one of us. And when we are silenced, when we are taking out our voice, that is a common problem because that will help all of us to really go through that situation in our lives, especially the younger ones who could decide not to continue in public life. So now I would like to give back the floor to our guest speakers because you have made comments and questions, and I'm sure they are really looking forward to going back to you. So now we'll give you three minutes each, and I will give you the floor in the same order as before.
So we start with you. Three minutes, please. The floor is yours.
Speaker 11
Initially, I will reply to the question about the anonymous work of journalists. It's impossible. We would have to go back to the times of printed press delivered to your doorstep. So, there's no going back. Let me also refer to what a member from Portugal said: technology creates opportunity.
Yes, I agree. We have research that shows that pushing women out of the public sphere results in limited access to education, the job market, and so on, because when women withdraw, they withdraw from different spheres. There is research available from Asia and Africa, from poor countries, and it shows that social media allows women to make money because they can use Instagram to sell products, jewelry, and items they cooked. It's the first opportunity in life for them to make money, to become economically independent, the only possibility to free themselves from a relationship based on violence. So yes, technology is not only a problem for us, politicians, and journalists, but the same limits apply to women making money and women becoming educated.
So we can all be affected, and the regress potentially could be significant. Also, there was a representative of the patriots; I can't remember which country you spoke about. Feminists—not all of us are feminists. That is true, yes. But then again, what happens will affect us all, whether you are pro-life or pro-abortion, whether you are against this, that, and the other. We will all get steamrolled together, regardless of whether you are a feminist or not. And you will not be able to fight for life against abortion because your spot on the electoral list will be taken away by your colleagues.
So, we should understand that we have a common objective, and we should show solidarity. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't know if it is online, Anna Nash, Vishy Shalil. I did it before very well, and now I've managed. I have not managed to say, but Paul, you have the floor for three minutes.
Speaker 12
Thank you. Just a couple of observations after the really fascinating discussion. I think today has demonstrated that we still need to do the job of convincing men that the topic we were addressing today is not just a women's problem. And yes, unfortunately, a lot of work remains to be done there since men are still not convinced; they probably still do not see the nature of the problem and consider it as our problem, not the problem of democracy or a problem of security in general. The second thing I wanted to flag is that there is probably no one-size-fits-all solution because if we take certain steps that can address disinformation and work in consolidated democracies, I'm sure some of those steps will not work in autocratic contexts.
For example, I'm absolutely sure that authoritarian governments will be more than happy to have very strict rules which they will apply in their contexts not to protect equality and not to uphold the rule of law, but actually to censor people under the cover of protecting some abstract women. So, we have to be very cautious in terms of identifying the context within which we expect certain instruments to work. And, of course, the international human rights framework is what we have to follow. And last thing, I see a trap, a risk that because solving the problem takes different stakeholders—public, private, individuals, the whole society—there is a trap that different actors will look at each other and expect each other to take the first step. Public sector from the private sector, and vice versa.
So I think it's very important to acknowledge this risk and to create more dialogue like this we had today, to see that we all have, as mentioned in the room many times, shared responsibility, but shared responsibility doesn't mean putting the burden on others. National parliaments taking leadership, the EU doing what it should and can do, and, of course, tech companies; we cannot do without their bold and innovative solutions. We need all of us to be leaders in finding the solution to this really serious problem.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you very much. And now, Doctor Simazin, the floor is yours for three minutes.
Speaker 14
Yes. Thank you. Thank you for all your perspectives. Very enlightening and interesting. I would like to focus on one aspect that I think emerged from almost all interventions, which is how we have actually seen growth in technology-facilitated gender-based violence, especially since the arrival of generative artificial intelligence, and this is a reality.
And so we can think that in the next months and years, if we do not act now, the situation could get worse for all women. And this means that we, as somebody said—I don't remember who—also need to think about who is creating technology today. Who are the creators? What are their imaginaries? They are political visions of the world because that's where we can see how much technology is not neutral; it is political.
And if we turn to who is creating technology today, we will see it's a bunch of men in Silicon Valley, white men, billionaires who are also aligning with alt-right agendas. So, can we really be surprised if misogyny is growing today? It is part of our political agenda to silence women and get them back home. So, for me, the answer, also to reply to some of the questions, should not be just technical. For example, by using identity cards on social media, that could also increase surveillance against women and marginalized communities, but the answer should be political.
And having a political answer means that if we recognize the political nature of technology, we can also think that we can embed these instruments with new imaginaries. For example, thinking about feminism. Feminism already has the key for imagining a new world and another technology, another type of digital society, for example, based on cooperation instead of competition, based on care instead of aggressivity, which is what we are seeing right now in the world. Right? And so we could do that if we added a survivor perspective, a feminist perspective to technology, and also maybe, I will say this, imagining social media and platforms that are not commercial.
Because I don't think we can have public spaces that are so commercial, because that is not where digital rights and human rights will rule, but commercial interests will rule. And finally, just because this is the week of March 8, I would like to remind all the voices that also think that feminism is not necessary today that if we, as women, are here today to speak, it is also thanks to feminist battles that have been fought in the past. So I think we should acknowledge the importance of our battle and also use this space to think of the importance of coordinating transnationally as women to provide a response to harm. Thank you. Indeed.
Speaker 18
Thank you. I'll answer three quick points that I think came up a few times and might pertain to my perspective. I think the first few comments were made about social media bans, the intersection between women's rights, and young girls' access to technology. I think it's true that we want to ensure that we have a better understanding of who people are online and their ages. We believe, generally speaking, as Microsoft, that we need to be a little cautious with full access bands.
It's not to say that we don't believe access to certain high-risk services for young people is warranted. There are probably some areas that a certain user of a certain age should not access. We just need to craft that carefully, with the right scientific data, to ensure that we don't accidentally infringe on any fundamental rights, including the right to privacy and access to information, and that we don't accidentally scope in educational platforms or social platforms that are proven to be helpful to young people. So, that was point one. Point two was about the role of education and the emphasis on needing to create cultures of respect online.
The problem is now deeply entrenched. You know, legislation is a way to address it. Technology is a way to address it, but we also need to think more holistically about how we create these cultures of respect and educate, especially young boys. This is something we've invested a ton in, in our gaming services. Microsoft has Minecraft and Xbox.
I'm happy to. I only have a minute left, so I won't go into depth, but we've spent a lot of time crafting videos that educate young boys about what it means to be respectful, which we've had good success with. And we've also made a lot of effort to be more transparent about what happens when you've done something wrong. So say you've accused a girl of, you know, being a b-word, and you're subsequently banned or shadow banned for, say, a week. We explain to young people why that has happened to them and what they need to avoid doing in the future to prevent it from happening a second time. And we found that if we explain that more, only 1% of young boys will harm themselves in the same way again.
There is lots to be said about how you create those cultures and how we can all work together to learn from that data and create those cultures both online and offline. And then, the last super quick point was on victim blaming. I think the MEP here, I misinterpreted or didn't explain correctly what I meant. We 100% agree with you. You should not be victim-blaming.
You should not put the responsibility on a victim or a survivor of nonconsensual intimate imagery. They should not be the ones to have to tell you that has happened to them. We only want to make sure that we do our part to better intake when a victim has experienced that, so that we can take action quicker, especially around the time of elections. So if a public figure who is running for elections, for example, sees that their image is being taken and used for deepfakes, we have special dedicated channels for politicians to feed into us so that we can take that down within 24 hours, especially at times of election when disinformation matters most. Thank you.
I'll stop here.
Speaker 1
Very useful. We will take into consideration if we run again for the election. I'll throw it here for 3 minutes, please.
Speaker 19
Thank you. I would like to touch upon three points that came up in the interventions. And the first one is the lack of freely given consent personally. Also, having followed, for example, the debates around a new directive on violence against women and domestic violence, I think this particular issue is lacking. The fact that images are posted without the consent given by the person concerned, personally, I think it's horrendous. I spoke about this analysis that we did on the data of the EU-wide survey on violence against women and gender-based violence, where we interviewed over 115,000 women in the European Union.
We also interviewed women who had been raped. And there's a misunderstanding about rape because the general narrative is that the perpetrators use force, which they do. But what these women told us, first and foremost, was that the most important thing for them was that they had not given their consent, either because they were unconscious, manipulated, or not listened to. So, I think that in policy debates, debates about legislation, this topic of the lack of freely given consent should be at the center. Secondly, there was a question about why boys are doing this.
Why are men doing this? For example, the manosphere. Not much research has been done on this yet. What we know, for example, from the data available is that often these men and boys think they have missed opportunities. They have missed opportunities in the labor market.
They have missed opportunities in education, and it's easy to blame someone else for this instead of looking at themselves. So, they blame girls. They blame women for their missed opportunities. Then, we will soon launch a study on cyber violence that we undertook for the Cypriot presidency, and we are organizing focus groups with young girls and young boys. And when you read what these boys say, and I will give you a little sneak preview of that report, many of these boys have no clue of the harm they caused by their actions.
Then there are boys who say, "Listen, I do know, but I don't want to drop out of my group of friends because I will be considered not masculine." And there are boys who use cyber violence as a sheer tool for manipulation. So, if the girl, for example, refuses to have a relationship with him, they produce these fake, sexualized photos to punish her. And these images go everywhere. And basically, there are three types of categories that we identified in this study.
And then, maybe a last word on the number of women and girls being victims of violence in the European Union. One in three women and girls suffer from psychological and sexual violence, and one in five suffer from this in an intimate partner relationship, where they should be safest. They're targeted as well. And, you know, what I sometimes feel, not in this room, but in other circumstances, is that especially when legislation is being discussed, it turns into a technical discussion, which it shouldn't be. Because, think about this data: it means that everyone in this room, and we may not know it, but basically should know women who are victims of violence.
It's the woman we love. It's the women we care about. It's the women we work with, and also the perpetrators. Think about these staggering figures. It shouldn't be a technical discussion.
It should be a discussion about what it is. It's violence against women and girls, including digital violence. Thank you.
Speaker 1
So, thank you. Thank you very much to all of you. It has been really wonderful to share this fall with you. Also, to all members of the European Parliament and the other chambers that are here with us, what is, I think, clear to all of us is that this digital violence against women is a problem that affects all of us, not only women; it affects our democracies and our values. I always like to say that if you want to go against democracy, you have to go against women, against feminism, which is the most democratic movement from the last century and a half.
So why have we been targeted? Because it is obvious that there are many forces that are now against democracy. I think it is also clear after our discussion that the answer to this digital violence should not only be technical, but it has to be political. And for that, we have a great responsibility for maintaining our democracies, because even here at the European Union, we still have a democratic deficit. Just take this parliament.
For the first time since there have been direct elections for this parliament, the percentage of women in this term has decreased. We were over 40% last Monday, and now we are at 38.5%. And so, this has happened for the first time, so don't allow it to continue decreasing. Let's go on. Even that, and this is another number I always like to give because not everyone is aware of it.
We normally talk about parity and everything, but there are 10 million more women within the European Union. 10 million more women. So, we are not a minority whatsoever. We are the majority. And I would also like to insist on how important it is to combat this digital violence against women, how central it is to democracy, but also to the European project, especially now. Geopolitics has come up a few times in our discussions, especially now that we are also under attack because we are the mirror for democracy, for fundamental values in which others don't want to be reflected or they don't want their societies to mirror.
So all problems with new tools, you were right that this has always happened this way, in silence. Women undervaluing other women. It has always happened, but it is also true that these new tools, this new digital world, are really trying very hard to move us out from the public space, from a democracy for shaping our future in media and politics, in knowledge, and especially in the digital arena. The good news is that I think we agree we are here to stay, to participate in society, in our economy, in politics, and especially in the digital arena. We don't want that future to be designed only by men and used only by men.
So we have to do it equally. So thank you very much, and we keep fighting together for a better world, for a fair Europe, for our women's rights and gender equality. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Just.
Speaker 1
A very practical piece of information. Well, thank you also to all the secretariat and to the DG part that made this possible, to the interpreters of course, and for the very practical information. We will continue right now with a networking lunch that will take place from 12:30 to 02:00 at the Grand Cafe Espinelli, which is located in the Spinelli Building. So, for the ones that are not in the European Parliament bubble, you have to go to the 3rd floor to cross the bridge to the main building, and then there will be signs to direct you. So, thank you.
Thank you very much once more. Thanks.
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