'58% young women face online harassment, abuse'

New Delhi: A latest global survey carried out across 22 countries has revealed that girls and young women are one of the biggest targets of online violence and abuse.

Carried out by UK-based humanitarian organisation Plan International, the survey, titled "State of the World's Girls Report", involved 14,000 women aged 15-25 from 22 countries including India, Brazil, Nigeria, Spain, Australia, Japan, Thailand and the United States.

Ahead of the International Day of Girl Child 2020 on October 11, the survey highlighted that 58 per cent of the respondents accepted having faced online harassment or abuse on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, and TikTok.

The percentage of affected women was similar for different regions around the globe.

"In Europe 63 per cent of girls reported harassment, followed by 60 per cent of girls in Latin America, 58 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region, 54 per cent in Africa, and 52 per cent in North America," the report found.

Ranging from threats of sexual violence to racist comments and stalking, online harassment of young women was directed in different manners. Of the girls who have been harassed, 47 per cent have been threatened with physical or sexual violence, while 59 per cent faced abusive and insulting language online.

A large number of women from minority and LGBTQ+ communities said they were harassed because of their identities. "Of the girls who were harassed, 42 per cent of the girls who identified themselves as LGBTIQ+; 14 per cent who self-identified as having a disability; and 37 per cent who identified themselves as from an ethnic minority said they get harassed because of it," found the survey conducted from April 1 to

May 5.