DW Akademie Study Safer platforms, stronger participation
Syria is a prime example where GBVO is intensely concentrated. The country has faced a catastrophic conflict,
leaving over 14 million people food insecure (UN OCHA,
2025). This vulnerability exacerbates exposure to
violence. According to the OCHA GBV Syria Overview
of 2025, women and girls bear the brunt, with neither
private nor public spaces safe, and adolescent girls being
easy targets for Technology-Facilitated GBV (TFGBV)
(UN OCHA, 2025).
Evidence indicates that TFGBV is widespread across Syria,
though underreported. ACAPS and UNFPA report that in
northwest Syria women and girls have experienced some
form of GBVO, a proportion expected to rise with growing
internet access and more people returning to NWS
(ACAPS, 2025). A 2023 field study by SecDev found
roughly 60 percent of Syrian women have experienced
digital violence, primarily on social media platforms like
Facebook and WhatsApp, with 90 percent of respondents
flagging blackmail with personal images as a very common harm (Al-sakkaf and Alsayed, 2023; SalamaTech,
2023) Humanitarian partners report encountering new
incidents weekly, with spikes during crises like the
COVID-19 lockdowns and the 2023 earthquake, as perpetrators exploit increased digital dependency.
In 2023 roughly 60 percent of Syrian women
have experienced digital violence, primarily
on social media platforms like Facebook
and WhatsApp.
Forms and Tactics: (ACAPS, 2025) The forms of GBVO in
Syria are diverse, frequently overlapping, and often cumulative in their impact. Drawing on ACAPS analysis, this
study identifies nine of the most commonly reported forms
of technology-facilitated TFGBV, listed below in order of
reported prevalence (ACAPS, 2025):
– Image-based abuse, means using images to coerce,
threaten, harass, objectify, or abuse a survivor, and
includes a wide range of behaviors involving taking,
sharing, or threatening to share intimate images without
consent. These images may be manipulated or sexual
in nature, in which case we speak of ‘image-based
sexual abuse’.
– Defamation, involves the public release and spread
of exaggerated or false information that causes reputational damage with the intent to humiliate, threaten,
discredit, intimidate, or punish the survivor, public figures
in particular (for example, public officials, activists, and
journalists).
– Online (gender/sexual) harassment involves the use
of technology to repeatedly contact, annoy, threaten,
or scare a person via unwelcome, offensive, degrading, or insulting comments and/or images. This type of
harassment is committed by individuals or mobs of male
perpetrators, who target people because of their gender,
sexuality, or sexual orientation.
– Cyberstalking involves the use of technology to monitor
and stalk a person’s activities in real-time or by collecting past digital traces.
– Sexual exploitation through gaming platforms is
now an increasing trend in NWS. Women and girls are
being exploited via mobile games and various chat
applications.
– Doxxing is a gendered form of online harassment
consisting of the non-consensual public disclosure of
personal information.
– Creepshots (digital voyeurism) is an offline form of
TFGBV involving the taking of non-consensual photos or videos, mainly of women and girls, in public
places — such as stores, public bathrooms, locker rooms,
classrooms, or on the street — as well as in the target’s
own apartment and spaces considered ‘safe’. Such
attacks frequently escalate offline. In extreme cases,
leaked images have triggered “honor”-based violence,
revealing how digital abuse intersects with patriarchal
social norms and offline harm.
The content of online violence in Syria often centers on
policing women’s morality and stifling their voices. A
common tactic is to frame a woman as “dishonorable” or
“immoral” to justify attacking her. Abusers will seize on any
pretext a photo without hijab, a friendly chat with a male
colleague, a bold opinion; and blow it into a scandal.
Many of these violations involved defamation
campaigns aimed at damaging the reputations and dignity of the women involved.
– Impersonation, is a process of stealing a person’s
identity in order to threaten or intimidate them, as well as
discredit or damage their reputation.
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