In an increasingly interconnected digital age, authoritarian states have found insidious ways to silence dissents living beyond their borders. This phenomenon, known as digital transnational repression (DTR), is an extension of authoritarianism that has adverse consequences on activists, dissidents, and advocates for political and social change living in exile. An additional manifestation of this issue is gender-based digital transnational repression, that specifically targets women, using gender-specific digital tactics aimed at silencing and disabling their voice. The Citizen Lab research team has been focusing on this issue for many years.
In a recent article published in the peer-reviewed journal Globalizations, The Citizen Lab’s Siena Anstis, senior legal researcher, and Émilie LaFlèche, former legal intern, examine how digital abuse against women exacerbates the sexism and patriarchal structures that exist in the physical world. They explain how women’s bodies, sexuality, and gender norms are weaponized against them by states and across borders through technology-facilitated gender-based violence, amplifying this form of digital transnational repression.
They call upon researchers investigating transnational repression to pay greater attention to the gender dimensions of this phenomenon, and its unique and disproportionate impacts on women.
Read their article here.