On 11 December 2025 EIGE Director, Carlien Scheele addressed the SANT-FEMM hearing with the Agency’s evidence and campaign on creating safer spaces for women and girls – online and offline…
Good morning members of the committee, good morning colleagues,
The timing of today’s discussion could not be more fitting – the 16 days of activism on violence against women has only just concluded focusing on digital violence and its devastating effects on women and girls.
Naturally, this is a significant topic for my Agency. Not least because violence against women – all forms of violence against women – is a core area of our work, but because we have shocking data that makes campaigns like Orange the World, all the more important.
This year my Agency revived our ‘Safe Spaces’ campaign which we launched back in 2022 with a Lithuanian illustrator, by the name of Eglė Narbutaitė. The campaign connects art with data. To bring people closer to the problem – but also to the solutions.
We show how online violence shadows women and girls through every part of their lives – from home, to school to workplaces and public life. We show how what happens online can flood into the offline world – and have devastating consequences.
But this is the critical part: against all the misogyny, hostility and fear that women and girls experience, we offer messages of hope: support is available, solutions exist, and that every girl and woman has the right to feel safe, respected, and valued - on and offline.
And this brings me to the core message I want to underline today: the online and offline worlds are not separate. What happens online has an offline impact -and often a profound and lasting one.
According to data collected by FRA and EIGE in eight Member States, one in twelve women in the EU has experienced cyberstalking since the age of 15. For a woman in her mid-30s today, that means she may have carried the mental health effects of digital violence for nearly two decades - long before we had the policy tools to address it.
Exposure to the online world begins very young. As President von der Leyen said during her State of the Union address: “Parents, not algorithms, should be raising our children.” Yet algorithms - and the platforms behind them - are increasingly shaping the social norms, risks, and misogynistic content that girls encounter every single day.
The EU has taken major steps forward, particularly through the 2024 Directive on Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, which for the first time clearly addresses cyberviolence. It covers key forms of abuse: cyber harassment and cyberbullying, cyberstalking, non-consensual sharing or manipulation of intimate material, and cyber incitement to violence or hatred. The priority now is the transposition and enforcement of these provisions across Member States. And from our side, my Agency has been mandated under article 44 with coordinating administrative data collection on forms of violence against women, including these forms of cyberviolence.
But legislation is not enough on its own. Digital platforms must step up. Technology evolves faster than our laws, so we need platforms that act proactively - long before emerging tools have a chance to escalate gender-based violence. The EU must ensure accountability through frameworks such as the Digital Services Act and the AI Act.
Coming back to my Agency’s research, we are supporting the upcoming Cypriot Presidency with a study on cyber violence against girls aged 13 to 18. And for this, we have gone straight to the source. We spoke directly with adolescents across Europe - girls and boys - to understand the realities they face.
One clear finding is that cyber violence is platform-agnostic. It shifts and adapts to what each platform makes possible: anonymity, image-sharing, private messaging, or live interaction.
Image-based cyber violence emerged as particularly harmful. One girl from Poland, just 13 to 15 years old, told us: “She didn’t want to date him… and he literally made a deepfake of her and started sending it around school.”
But the emotional and psychological impacts were equally alarming. Girls described sadness, fear, anxiety, insecurity, and feelings of worthlessness -particularly following harassment, bullying, or image-based abuse. Many internalised the harm, blaming themselves or feeling deep shame, making it even harder to seek help – even if it’s available.
Some even recounted peers experiencing severe distress: suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and depression following online shaming or public exposure. Appearance-based bullying- especially around body weight or shape - was described as relentless and often driven by anonymous perpetrators.
Across all groups, there was a consistent message: the boundaries between online and offline harm are blurred. Abuse moves back and forth between the two worlds; where its effects accumulate and deepen.
We will have additional insights with the EU-GBV Survey final report in March 2026, which will offer a deeper understanding of violence in intimate and non-partner contexts, sexual harassment via online tools (from eight Member States), and more detailed evidence on online stalking.
Colleagues, I reiterate once more: digital violence is real violence. It harms women’s and girls’ mental health, safety, and sense of self. We have strong laws, growing evidence, and increasing awareness. The three of which need to come together more robustly to change the course of action to end cyber violence and all forms of violence against women.
I look forward to hearing your views.
Thank you.