Regulation, Protection and Justice: Responses to Gender-Based Digital Violence against Women (CSW70 Side Event)

And amplify structural inequalities. The absence of institutional responses leads to the naturalization of these practices, thereby weakening democracy, limiting the diversity of voices heard and restricting the right of women to fundamental rights. In this context, Brazil chose to promote this dialogue. In the framework of the csw, we must discuss strategies for prevention, accountability and protection in the digital context. This is essential in order to effectively respond to these new forms of gender based viol violence.

A key example is the Inter American Model Law to sanction and eradicate gender based violence against Women. It was approved in December 2025. This Model Law seeks to guide states in the prevention of this crime, protection of victims, as well as the reparation of harm caused in the public and private spheres. The spread of this instrument and the exchange of experiences in the framework of the CSW represents a key opportunity to adopt similar mechanisms at the national and international levels, as well as to strengthen regional and international cooperation in the prevention, punishment and in the eradication of gender based digital violence. The this event has three objectives.

First, to promote good practices when addressing cyber based digital violence. Two, to highlight the instruments needed and three, to highlight international mechanisms that can respond to this issue. We have an incredible team of authorities and specialists that have contributed to this dialogue in their countries and in global institutions. Each panelist will have five minutes for their intervention. We ask you all to try to maintain the time given to keep on track so we can hear you all.

And then we will have some time for Q and A at the end. To start, we would like to invite the Minister of Women of Brazil, Minister Marcia Lopez, you have the floor.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon to everyone present here today. I'd like to make a few points so that my microphone isn't cut. So my dear activist Gianca Lula da Silva, Our Ambassador Vanessa Dosage Faria, High Representative for Gender for Brazil's Foreign Ministry. All of the countries that along with Brazil are promoting this session.

Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, MEZEC and UN women, it's a great pleasure to be here and see each one of you that is so committed to this fight, to this cause. Parliamentarians, people from all different systems, legal systems, Parliament and executive. Thank you so much for your presence here today. I'd like to say that with the advent of Internet, we entered a new civil atory mark. Digital platforms, social networks, AI transformed deeply the way in which we communicate, in the way which produce knowledge and organize our life as a society.

Even still, these advances also brought new challenges. The same technologies that extend opportunity can also be used to reproduce inequalities and violence in the digital environment. Misogynistic practices, hate speech and other sophisticated forms of violence against women and girls have intensified. Today, technologies based in AI allow the manipulation of images, the creation of fake content and the dissemination of pornography that has not had any permission. In addition, other contents can circulate globally, crossing barriers and and creating profound harm to privacy, dignity and safety of these women.

In Brazil, research in 2024 performed by Netlab with the support of the Ministry of Women, analyzed more than 76,000 YouTube videos and identified a network of channels dedicated to sharing misogynistic content that together have billions of visualizations. These content attack especially feminists, single mothers and women that occupy public spaces such as political mandates, journalists and human rights defenders. Misogyny online is not just a virtual phenomenon. It it's part of a continuum of violence based on gender that crosses the lives of women inside and outside the Internet, creating fear, silence and serious psychological impacts. Before this landscape, states have an obligation to act.

In Brazil, we advanced and made progress on this with the Law for the Internet to face digital violence. The Makwasi view of the Internet creates principles, laws and important laws like Catalina Jikmin Law, Lola Law and Rosie Leonel Law all talk about crimes related to misogyny online and the sharing of images without consent. At the same time, the Congress nationally has discussed new initiatives at the legislative level inspired by the Model Law, the Inter American Model Law for the prevention, punishment and eradication of digital violence based on gender against Women. This was approved at Mezecvi in December of 2025 in Fortaleza. This brings us important guidance for countries to face this challenge.

And each one of you will receive this Model Law that important in Portuguese, English and Spanish. We know that technology evolves quickly and legislation many times doesn't keep up with this speed. Even still, this cannot be an excuse for the lack of action. It's responsibility for all the states to prevent, protect and hold accountable and repair the violences based on gender, race. Also on the online space.

To face misogyny online means defending fundamental rights, dignity, gender equality, racial equality and the rights to privacy, truth and integrity of women and girls. I hope that this session gives us even more strength to mobilize in all of our regions, involving all of the countries and the UN system, so that we can put into practice another way of life and above everything else, based on equality of gender, race and ethnicity. Thank you so much and a good event to all of us.

Thank you. Next, we have a sociologist in a Special Envoy for women for COP 30 Gianja Lula da Silva.

I'd like to salute all women. I would like to salute all women that are here tonight to talk about what we've been facing in the social network digital world. And I am just a witness here because I have been very violently attacked since President Lula took over in his camp. I salute you all and it's very, very satisfying to see all these women here supporting this cause. Of the many gender issues we need to address and find effective solutions for digital violence against women and girls is one of the most urgent.

Because in the digital world, usually that's where violence begins. As a woman and in my current position as First Lady, I have suffered and continue to suffer digital violence. The use of my image in deep faith fake videos and the dissemination of fake news about me is frequent. It's very common for you to search my name on the Internet and the first thing that appears is zhanja and an insult. Jenja is this and it is terrible me.

At some point I spoke with a Google representative and told her, how do you allow this to happen?

There is no freedom nor equality, much less full exercise of citizenship when a woman is the victim of threats, harassment, smear campaigns, dissemination of intimate images, digital scams and so many other forms of virtual violence. Digital violence affects all of us women, regardless of age, social class or origin. It affects all of us, but its impact is exacerbated by structural inequalities. It is most cruel to vulnerable groups such as black women and girls and those living in the periphery. Dear friends, there was a time when we heard about the circulation of illicit, violent and misogynistic content on limited access Internet pages.

We call that deep fake web where it was. It was hard to access, it was not available for all. But today, what we see now, today it freely moves around in digital platforms, videos with simulations or real aggressions that come from this culture, disseminated by influencers and algorithms that strengthen this gender stereotypes and devaluing women, valuing misogyny and especially the discourse is submission for women. In the last week, even in the day that we celebrate the International Day of Women, a very scary trend in TikTok was promoting violence against women if they would respond no to a request from a man. When I saw these shocking videos, I was appalled because in the International Day of Women they start such a trend.

Obviously I called the president, my husband and he worked with some channels so we can demand TikTok to remove these videos. These are videos youth from youth simulating knifing women that refuse their requests for love making. It's terrible. I don't know if you saw it. It's a discourse that easily goes from the screens to real life.

Yesterday in Brazil, a receptionist, 55 year old, was beaten by a guest in the hotel where she works because she refused to give her a kiss.

And last week, a woman was murdered in front of her two children, young children also, because she refused a kiss from a man, an unknown man that she didn't even know that was negotiating his cell phone that she had purchased from the Internet and he killed her.

I'm sorry. It's always very hard for me to talk about this. Today, videos with simulations online of misogyny grow exponentially. In Brazil, it increased more than 200%. According for SafeNet Brazil.

This also happens because in the digital world, criminal can hide. In fact, anonymity facilitates crime. But we've been understanding like in this trend, it doesn't matter for them to see who they are or not in the trends, they have their names, etc. And there is no way not to link the increase in virtual violence with the escalation of femicide. A survey conducted by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro reveals that 90% of YouTube channels identified in 2024 with misogynistic content remain active and have a growing audience.

This is unacceptable and inadmissible. Inadmissible that we have a platform just like YouTube, which is a platform that teaches a lot with very good people working on it, but that also monetizes this type of content. While women are abuse in the digital environment, platforms profit profit from this violence. And I want to make this very clear. It's not just dissemination of hate.

We're talking about profit from these platforms. And for big tech companies, money matters much more than our lives. These companies invest heavily in lobbying parliaments and governments to prevent a passage of laws and regulations. They that could limit their activities, even if this is necessary to protect people and guarantee our rights.

At the end of 2023, my old Twitter profile was hacked. And even though I contacted the platform within minutes of this attack, my profile remained online online, harassing me, showing my face, talking and saying absurdities. But it was still online because the platform was profiting. It was online for five hours even though it was hacked. I cannot quantify how much the owner of that platform, which I won't mention the name made at that moment.

The reality is that the Internet is a potent and powerful space for good, but it's also very powerful for Evil. And while it amplifies women's voices, it also amplifies forms of violence against them. In our country, an average of 4 women are killed every day. I mentioned this yesterday, the day before yesterday, and I will say this every. Every day, as many days as necessary.

One every six hours, a woman is killed, and in most cases by current or former husband's or ex boyfriends. We have made progress in combating violence against women and in building a legal framework for protection in the digital environment. As an example of this is the pact between the three branches of government to combat femicide, which coordinates actions to combat violence against women and girls. Another example, echa, which aims to ensure protection in the digital environments for children and adolescents. Monday, the President will approve the sanctioning against harassment of women and girls on the Internet.

But even with some progress, the Brazilian Congress, which is mostly male and right wing conservatives, still resists passing the bill that seeks to regulate these platforms, alleging that it is censure of the First Amendment. We do not want to contain freedom of speech of anyone, but we don't want the repetition of the scenes that have been happening lately in the digital platforms. While our Congress is influenced by the big tech lobby, women and girls continue to be victims of digital violence. Therefore, improving legislation on digital gender violence and creating mechanisms for regulating and holding technology companies and digital platforms accountable is a matter of urgency. We have the recent example of the bill presented by female congresswoman which seeks.

And they are here with us and I greet them all, which seeks to provide comprehensive protection for women against gender based violence in the digital environment. This bill was based on the Inter American Model Law to prevent punish mentioned by Ambassador Vanessa and also Minister Marsa. The Inter American Model Law to prevent, punish and eradicate digital gender violence against women, which was developed by many people, many women hands, for sure. Collective initiatives with focus on cooperation between countries and the sharing of experiences where multilateralism fulfills its purpose and supports the construction of regulatory frameworks. This is fundamental for us to advance in the defense of rights.

The Internet cannot be a lawless land. What is valid for the real world is valid for the digital world. Together we are stronger to build a safe digital environment. Environment where girls and women can be free to dream and build a future they want. Thank you very much.

Thank you for these words, First Lady. Now we have the Sub Secretary to the right of. Of a life free of violence from Mexico, Ingrid Gomez Saraciga. Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Thank you very much to all of you. Thank you to the government of Brazil for allowing this exchange. Thank you for always being a hand of solidarity in these struggles. For the government of Mexico and for many of us here, digital violence is the contemporary expression of a historical structural violence. It's not a new trend, but a new border for inequality.

The digital sphere, as was noted by my colleagues, is not neutral. And the absence of appropriate institutional responses normalizes these practices. Weakening democracy, restricting participation of women. This is not an isolated expression or a lesser expression, but it is a way to control and punish and discipline women, particularly when they participate in public and political spaces. As was mentioned by our colleague.

We would like to share a few statistics. What are we discussing exactly when we talk about digital violence in Mexico? In 2024, 84.7% of all Mexicans used Internet on any type of device. That is to say that approximately 90.3 million people access the Internet, 47.6 million of those people are women, 42.7 million users are men, and approximately 18.9 million of people were victims of digital harassment. And here the comparison deepens even more.

10.6 million women were victims of cyber harassment, and 8.9 million men were also victims of digital harassment. But it is experienced differently in the case of the men rather the women. What we truly face in Mexico are insinuations or sexual proposals. We receive sexual content, there is monitoring of our accounts, online critiques for our physical appearance or social class. Private information is published, photographs, videos and images.

And videos of sexual content is also sold online. For men, the experience is different. They usually receive offensive messages, offensive calls, provocations, threats. We see that audio or video is then spread online for extortion. That is to say, sexual content is not present for for men, while when it comes to cyber attacks on women, those tend to involve sexual content.

Here are a few points that I think are important for us to reflect. Digital violence in Mexico is recognized as a form of violence against women. On the Access Law, for women to access life without violence. This includes the Olympia Law. It is now known as the Olympia Law.

This law gave us the opportunity to know and provide support in a number of stories and recognize a very important group of digital activists. We also have to say that the spread without consent of private content is a crime in all 32 states of the country. And this is only possible thanks to this push from civil society and digital activists. And of course, the woman, Olympia Coral Melo, who has been an activist, a very important person in the fight for this lot to become a reality today in Mexico City. Since 2000 2022, we also have a specialized body that provides support in cases of digital violence.

This is a challenge that we have to face head first. How can we create these bodies that are specialized in digital violence in all 32 states of the country? And of course, we spoke today about the Tlatelolco commitments with the Minister Marcia and this is a roadmap for us to fight violence against women. And today we have to say that the commitment reaffirms the obligations to prevent, punish and eradicate all forms of violence against women in all spaces. And of course the the digital space is included.

This commitment also requires the establishment of a working group that addresses the implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence when it comes to gender equality in Latin America. Therefore, it is important to know that we have these concepts, that this is our roadmap for this effort so that the digital world can become a more equal world. Today, I must say that there was a very important collaboration with the Model Law, as Minister Marcia has noted. Additionally, President Scheinbaum, along with the Minister, who was not able to be here due to what is occurring today, she sends her greetings and her apologies. They presented the first agreement with digital platforms and of course there are still some tasks pending, but we believe it is extremely important to have this first dialogue, this first agreement, so it establishes the collaborative basis with technological platforms.

Of course, of course, we can't forget everything that has been already noted about these technological platforms. We need to keep in mind, as digital activists always say, that we want to transform and change that algorithm of the patriarchy. We want to turn the digital world into a world of equality and justice for all women. Quite briefly, I would like to remark on this. This agreement is divided into two main phases in order to guarantee life without violence in the digital sphere.

On prevention, we have nine specific actions. Today in the morning program it was presented and then we have eight actions for our responses. I'll comment on a few. It will be published tomorrow across all of our official websites of the Mexican government. We will review the community guidelines on social media platforms in order to strengthen that digital environment, to create a space of dignity and fairness and equality for women.

We will also share a charter of digital rights. We will carry out campaigns to share educational and training messages for for content creators and users. And we will also develop specific messages for orange days, that is to say, the 25th day of every single month. There will be campaigns to incentivize reporting these types of activities and there will be systems for reporting on the platforms. We will strengthen various tools and policies in Order to prevent safety, sanction and eradicate violence in the digital sphere.

What digital activists tell us is that it's not just an act of reporting. There must be real legal consequences. This crime must be included in laws.

There must be literacy in digital spheres. We must educate the ecosystem of content creators, users of this technology to create an inclusive digital space. I believe that this will be a task that is handled by three parties, the platforms, the government, and of course, civil society and academia. We will generate accessible information to raise awareness amongst users as to how to use the technology in a responsible manner. And I'm getting a message that my time is almost over.

So I would just like to ask you to learn about this agreement. We thought that it was necessary. We need to build equality in the digital world and this requires very significant transformations. This is just one small step. There is still so much to do.

The digital world should be a world of equality and dignity for girls and women of our whole region. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Vice Minister, for sharing this information from today's morning program. I ask you to please limit your time to five minutes so that we can all hear each other this afternoon. Now I would like to invite the Minister, the representative from Colombia.

Thank you very much. I would like to thank Brazil for having organized this space. It is essential. We have quite a robust audience today and we've heard from our previous panelists. I would like to recognize the work of Ms. Sekvi and Luz Patricia Mejia, the Technical Secretary who is here with us today, as well as Alejandra Moramora, who is also with us on the committee of experts that has called us to carry forward the model law.

I will come back to the law at the end because this is a topic quite dear to me.

As we know, across the whole world, in Latin America and the Caribbean and Colombia as well, gender based violence is increasing and it has also led to other forms of violence. We understand that it is a continuum in my country. In 2024, there was an increase of 20% in the registered cases. According to UN Women, 75% of report suffering some type of digital violence. This is three quarters of all girls.

It becomes a significant hurdle when it comes to full participation in work environments, political spheres and digital spaces. 75% of digital violence victims also report suffering other forms of violence. Gender based violence offline. This reiterates the connection between all of these forms of violence that we are witnessing. The social media algorithms and artificial intelligence are making digital violence more sophisticated.

It is ever evolving and it has become a tool that is used to continue anti rights, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. It continues those hate campaigns in my country. There have been very several initiatives to carry forward legislation to address this and I would like to mention one here. There was a class act that nine journalists put forward and the Constitutional Court issued a ruling in 2023 recognizing the right to live without violence, without digital violence. And it urged the competent authorities to adopt measures to fight and address this type of gender based violence.

I want to specifically, specifically note this in the tutela, in the class action suit and in the ruling of the court. The digital gender based violence was seen throughout the political spectrum, throughout political parties. It is not just a matter of the extreme right. Sadly, we see this across all ideologies, including on the left. And this tells us a lot about misogyny and the patriarchy.

They tell us how these practices come about. And it knows no borders, no ideological rifts. In response to the ruling of the Constitutional Court, the Ministry of Equality is currently developing a bill and it's the Law of Protection in the Technological Sphere and it has been approved in two debates on the Senate floor. There are two more debates it must move through. This law seeks to prevent and sanction gender based violence.

It wants to generate safer spaces for women. There is a legal recognition of this as a crime and it establishes the obligation from the state to prevent, sanction and repair. There are clear paths for victims with a cross cutting approach. There are also educational training programs in the technological sphere to socialize children, as well as the important note of the responsibilities shared by public entities and technological platforms, which we hope that this project is able to succeed and is adopted as a law. I would like to now conclude, because we have very little time, I would like to highlight some elements of the model law that I believe are essential for us to keep in mind.

Similar to many other initiatives in our region, it becomes a model and apologies for being redundant for other regions of the world. It is the first legal framework to to understand and address digital violence that is gender based. As I noted in the Colombian case and as has been mentioned in Mexico and Brazil, it establishes a shared responsibility between the state and the digital platforms that is even more urgent now. We see episodes such as the Epstein scandal and everything it reveals about this dark world of the billionaires that move in these spaces.

It also establishes clear links with global initiatives that are already underway such as the Budapest Convention, the UN Convention on Cybercrime and even more important, the Global Digital Pact which was adopted as part of the Pact for the Future it establishes a plan for this governance which is key for the digital world currently. Finally, it provides the opportunity to consider different spaces for exchange and cooperation between countries in the region and between regions. We can exchange good practices, experiences and lessons learned. This is the way to globalize this initiative and ensure that globally there is more protection and against this specific gender based violence. And I conclude with the following the effectiveness of any initiative such as this one depends on political will, resources, financing and the training of government servants as well as society as a whole.

The task here is large and urgent. Thank you very much.

Muchas gracias.

Thank you very much, Madam Ambassador, to invite the Chair on the Commission on Gender Equality of South Africa, Ms. Seponia Mogali. Madam Chair, you have the floor, please.

Thank you. Thank you to Brazil for inviting us to participate as South Africa in this occasion. We do appreciate and hope it will strengthen the collaboration. Indeed, it is quite an honor to be amongst such a distinguished a group of distinguished women and champions of justice and equality. This topic deserves the thoughtful insight and attention such a panel can provide and I'm humbled to be part of it.

Today. We cannot deny that digital technologies are reshaping every sphere of our social, economic and political life. Often the impact is positive as we witness an increase in women's access to education, finance, public services, legal information and collective action. They can amplify women's voices in democratic life and create new avenues for reporting abuse, documenting violations and seeking remedies. Unfortunately, this is a double edged sword as the same technologies can also intensify structural inequalities and amplify intersecting discrimination.

Women and girls face unequal access to technology, but are also disproportionately accessible, exposed to online abuse and harassment. We cannot separate the digital sphere from the real world and as we learned from CSW67 already, the struggle for gender equality must be taken to the online frontier. The question that we must then consider is how we adequately protect women and girls rights in the digital space while concurrently promoting their advantages and advancement and access to this technology. Online abuse is not virtual abuse. It has real consequences for safety, mobility, livelihood, mental health and equal participation in public life.

Importantly, we need to find suitable and applicable legal and regulatory norms that would serve in the interest of the empowerment and human rights of women and girls in their diversity. At regional level, we have heard of the excellent work being done within the Americas and the importance of the Interamerica model in Africa. We rely on the application of the Maputo Protocol as the strong normative foundation to protect women's dignity, integrity and security and to enact and enforce laws to protect women's dignity to prohibit all forms of violence against women in both public and private life. This is then considered in conjunction with the AU Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection of 2020 to provide a continental framework on cybersecurity and data governance. More recently, the African Union Convention in Ending Violence Against Women and Girls explicitly applies to violence committed in cyberspace.

The application of these three regional conventions serves as a regional foundation to encourage greater protections for women and girls in the digital environment. In the South African context, we have a strong legal framework for such protections and it is one that must continuously evolve to keep pace. We have promulgated legislation in the Domestic Violence Amendment act of 2021 the that expands the legal response to recognize forms of abuse, including electronic communications, and by empowering courts to obtain information from electronic communication service providers and where appropriate, to order the removal of harmful electronic communications or disable access to them. However, it is equally important that the access to justice dimension remains central.

Women cannot be meaningfully protected in the digital age if the justice system is slow, fragmented or inaccessible. In recognition of this, our National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide, which is a 2020-2030 ten year strategy, provides a multisectoral framework centered on accountability, justice response, prevention, economic power and research. In the justice cluster, South Africa's sexual offences courts and Tutuzela care centers remain amongst the most important and survivor centered mechanisms. Such practical justice innovations matter greatly for women survivors including where violence has a digital dimension. Going forward, the task is clear.

We have and need regional and international law to provide for states to pursue gender responsive digital governance. It should combine the positive benefits of digital technologies including universal and affordable connectivity whilst offsetting the negative abuse and endangerment of women online through well considered and frequently assessed and gender responsive justice mechanisms. For South Africa and Africa broadly, the challenge is not the absence of normative guidance, it is the implementation. Our responsibility is to ensure that digital transformation advances women's rights, closes rather than deepens inequality and makes access to justice more immediate, more dignified and more effective for all women and girls. Thank you,

Thank you very much for sharing your comments and views.

Now we will hear from Luz Patricia Mejia, Technical Secretary of the Committee of Experts M she plays and well this organization MZEKVI plays a very important role in establishing standards to fight gender based violence.

Good afternoon. It's already afternoon here at CSW but we don't know if it's morning if it's late, but good afternoon everyone. We're very thankful to be here. I am going to make the most of these next few minutes to quite quickly share the model law that has been referenced. This is a model law that was built with the efforts of women in this region of this clean movement.

And it is also the effort of many women in this region that propose the need of a useful tool in order to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women. So. So I'll be quite quick here you have a few slides on screen with elements and concepts that we'll be sharing briefly in the dialogue that lasted three years. Something that we've seen is that we've tried to name the violence online and we realized that this name had been facilitated by the technology. And we realized that in this moment violence is normally perpetrated, instigated, facilitated or aggravated by technology.

As has been mentioned here, the female body has a price. The female body and the reproduction of images of female bodies have a price that are able to make a few wealthier and impact most women. At least all women that interact online and women that do not have the tools or the abilities to advance with other possibilities. I believe that something that we have to note beyond the main principles is that it was important for this to have a cross cutting approach. Women who have access to justice.

We see that this does not mean the same for women with disabilities, Afro descendant women, women that experience greater gaps. We need literacy in those communities that are living in impoverished conditions. But we see that gender based violence online does not just impact women in politics, it impacts all women and girls and it impacts democracy. And that is essential in this conversation. What the law proposes is that to generate a process that is truly transformative and address digital violence, we first need prevention.

Most states are currently trying to punish and sanction violence, but girls, boys, women still don't know how this technology works. We don't know how to enter our accounts, how to change settings, make it safer. We don't know how to truly work in this space. So we need to work with girls in the region. Girls have told us we don't know who to talk to because our mothers, our fathers don't understand this, our teachers don't understand.

Who can we talk to about this, how can we express this? So we need to do this prevention work first. It needs to be carried forward by the state and it must include psychological support that is one of the most serious impacts of violence in the region. We need to protect women and we need to provide Reparation. Mexico has announced this, and we would like to congratulate this agreement with the platforms.

What has been proposed historically in the international doctrine of human rights is that freedom of expression was fundamental and had to be cared for. But freedom of expression is an absolute right. Understanding that the rights of women and girls are part of that means that we must regulate and protect. We must regulate freedom of speech so that we can express ourselves and guarantee information, but prevent misogyny. And that is what this model law wants to achieve.

We want to identify where are the main elements to address this topic. Companies and Internet intermediaries must no longer have impunity. They must be able to have legal representation. They earn money without legal representation, without paying taxes. They keep earning money without us being able to contact them directly.

A law that prevents digital violence doesn't necessarily allow women to access platforms and their images to be eliminated and information to be limited. They need to have these obligations with the territory, and that is essential. Also, we need to consider the moderation of content. Many of these conversations about freedom of expression noted that intermediaries can't be in charge of regulating content. But nowadays, intermediaries are regulating content.

They regulate what they want, they limit content, they reproduce the content that they're interested in reproducing, the ones that provide most profit for them. So what we are saying is that we need to regulate that. We must have greater clarity here. Victims need to have a clear pathway to demand reparations. They must also have a way to guarantee that their information is eliminated from the online platforms.

And the state must participate. It must guarantee that platforms work and have transparent mechanisms, that there is transparency when it comes to the algorithms, that women are not continuously being victimized. There is a whole chapter dedicated to justice in our model law. What a woman who has been a victim, whether it is a politician, a young girl, a teenager, is that this information is eliminated from the online platform as quickly as possible possible. We need to guarantee that online platforms have the mechanisms needed to guarantee accessibility and to assume their responsibility.

Therefore, we need legislation that guarantees administrative and criminal guidelines in the justice system for these platforms. This is specifically for those platforms where women are broadly attacked. And this is something that Brazil has given us. We have the precautionary measures and preliminary injunctions. Women need an effective, quick and immediate mechanism.

This is a way for them to have reparations, and we can guarantee freedom of expression. Of course, the information can be removed and then analyzed, but I can't analyze the information, decide whether it is really violating human Rights and then save women. We need to first save women and then guarantee freedom of expression quite quickly. The Declaration of Fortaleza that moved forward in Brazil with the contributions of the countries in our region has a very clear mandate. It is a broad mandate on the importance of eliminating disinformation when it comes to gender based violence.

The importance of eliminating misogyny online, and this strengthens our democracies. So we have our model Law. You can visit it online. I would like to conclude by thanking UN women for their support. It has been essential in this process.

They have truly been essential when we've worked on this law and we hope that we continue to implement this law. I know that I have very limited time, but these states, women organizations and us, all of us here, we need to be on the same page. This is not resolved by one state. It is resolved between all of us, with all of the governments facing a power that has no restrictions in this moment. And that is the power of the online platforms.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Luis, for getting to the point with the model Law.

By the way, Minister Marcia was telling me that there is a bill in Brazil written by Congresswoman Jackie Hosha and they do have support from the bench.

I now give the floor to Dr. Monica Javier from Uruguay.

There we are. I would like to thank the government of Brazil, the government of Mexico, Colombia, mesekvi, OAS and UN Women. Thank you for this space. Thank you for allowing us to have this intervention. It is an honor for Uruguay to be able to participate alongside these governments and multilateral institutions and civil society organizations.

And this room is a beautiful expression of this work, generating synergy for such an important topic as the one that we are currently addressing. The digital environment has become a central pillar of our everyday life. And digital technologies have transformed the way that we communicate, work, are informed and participate in public life. It has broadened opportunities, but technology has also generated a series of consequences that must be prevented. Without a doubt.

I believe that we also see new inequality and these forms of violence, of gender based violence against women today, we are trying to shed light on them. We know that violence does not disappear when it changes settings. It continues to happen and it is able to find new ways of expressing itself. Digital gender based violence, which includes harassment, extortion, etc. The diffusion of images without consentment, hate speeches, misogyny, the usurpation of identity and exchange of digital information without consent.

This all impacts women, it impacts their way of participating, their mental and emotional health. And without a doubt, it impacts public participation politically and socially. It is important to affirm that the human rights of women must be guaranteed in digital environments. The inter American system has been key in order to advance this understanding. And and in December, as was mentioned, this important framework law was approved for our work.

Without a doubt, preventing, punishing and eradicating digital violence is a commitment. We would like to highlight the obligations for states, for technological platforms, Internet intermediaries. But there must also be accountability, transparency and we must clear close the digital gender gap with an approach based on human rights and cultural belonging. This is something that allows us for this legal framework to be adopted. And we always highlight that this law has a very important pedagogical element.

This is a new expression of violence that we must all understand in order to be able to enact legislation from Uruguay. We understand that this challenge requires coordinated efforts that are cross cutting. And the National Institute of Women in Uruguay, with the support of misegvi, UN Women and unfpa, has launched the first national dialogue to discuss digital violence and its challenges. We are also analyzing potential national regulations. Uruguay does not start from scratch.

We already have a law on violence that was already foreseeing violence in the digital sphere since 2017. We also have the cybercrime law, but this goes beyond that. We must adapt our law and we need to adopt governmental measures. This goes beyond the current framework, but these principles must also be included. Faced by this, the state wants to prevent that regulation and mechanisms be eclipsed by the fast changing nature of this technology.

We must react, but we must anticipate and prevent and create digital spaces that are inclusive and safe and protect the human rights of all persons. This means paying particular attention to women in their diversity. Afro descendant, indigenous, immigrant, young women, activists, the whole variety in diversity. We know that some of them are even more vulnerable when faced by these attacks which have as an objective to silence us and remove us from the public space. This is why it is essential to fight digital gender based violence.

It is not just a legal or technological matter, it is a democratic matter. Because when women are silenced, society loses out on opinions, richness and the quality of the public debate. Without a doubt, our democracy loses. We truly value the opportunity to participate in this dialogue in CSW 70. And to conclude, we would like to reaffirm the commitment of Uruguay to continue working all together.

This is a moment where we are living tension, armed conflict in this world, as well as deep global uncertainty. The principles that inspire multilateralism have been impacted by these realities. So we are watching this whole situation with concern. We See that violence, polarization and hate speech are earning ground in different areas, including digital spaces. Faced by this situation, it is important to have an unprecedented solution that is built collectively because no country can win this fight alone.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now we would like to invite our last panelist, Maria, representative of UN Women in Colombia.

Thank you. Now I have to be very concise. First of all, I would like to thank the government of Brazil and UN Women for organizing this space. I would like to thank Mexico, Colombia, South Africa for this organization and this regional work. I would also take.

I would like to take this opportunity to speak about the group of experts of Masegui to speak about the women of Catatumo in Colombia and the risks that women and girls are facing because of the armed conflict. We were able to see that there is also an increase in digital violence against women and girls. And we must understand how this develops in moments of conflict. And we need to pay attention. This is a region, Latin America, that is pioneering in normative frameworks.

We see solid frameworks and the maps, but this isn't the same as to be able to walk the path. This is the same with the digital, the digital realm, we need to pay attention in systems of justice that respond to all women and all their diversity. This violence against women is not only gender based violence. It is a continuation of this gender based violence. It is a realm of digital spaces that is not neutral.

We speak about how things go viral, how people can be anonymous on these platforms and there is persistent damage. It is not only in the virtual realm. It also affects mental health, reputation, physical health. We need to also mention digital violence against women in the spaces of politics.

In Colombia, we spoke about digital violence and 40% were speaking about suffering digital violence. They said that they have been not doing digital campaigns in fear of this violence. There are campaigns to eliminate this gender based violence online.

This isn't only limited to specific context.

This advance regionally has to do with also

the Olympia Law that has created certainly reforms in the penal law.

Brazil has also developed reforms that have also that are also responding to digital violence. We have also seen reforms in Paraguay and Peru. These reflect that there is an increase in seeing that there. We need some specific response to this digital violence in the justice system.

We have seen today that this legal leadership can be applied to this new space.

We need systematic responses that are articulated in these times. We need to advance and translate it into into real change. These rights don't only exist on paper, but they need to be protected. These gaps are also seen when we recollect data, When the responses are weak, these gaps increase.

As I mentioned, the Minister of South Africa. It is important to act. We also need to count with UN women. Thank you.

Muchas gracias. Thank you, Marines. Before giving the floor to the women of Brazil to for the conclusion, I would like to thank all the panelists for their contributions. And I would like to give the floor to the Minister to close.

This important session.

Sorry, I lost the feed. Interpretation. Has lost the feed.

Do things.

You can access this later in the site of the Congress or the Ministry of Women. A law about the use of imagery. Another important piece of information I'd like to share is that in Brazil we are regulating the use of AI and also preparing a Brazilian plan for AI that is being coordinated by the Ministry of Civilization, Science and Technology and Innovation. So it seems to me that if each country assumes this commitment as a priority, and if we are able to do this together, we will strengthen significantly our decisions and have greater impact on Brazil and also the UN system with our shared position. So I'd like to thank very much each of you for being here today.

I know that we don't even have time for lunch because we all have other events scheduled right after. But it's been very important and I'm very happy to have shared this space here. I'd like to thank the Brazilian delegation who's here present today, and we're always here, available in this fight that we continue moving forward. We were just with Malala earlier today, and we already spoke to the Minister of South Africa here, because there's a campaign

against the gender apartheid that's happening in Afghanistan. She shared with us that girls have been five years without being able to go to school because of a rule dictated by the current regime. And we cannot allow this to happen. She urged us to join this campaign, support this campaign against the gender apartheid in Afghanistan and in other ways that takes place in many of our countries as well. So the fight continues.

Let's keep moving forward, always believing in our capacity not only to feel the rage, but also to take action. Thank you. My warm greetings to all of you to Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, partner in this event. Thank you.