The Online Safety Bill presents an opportunity to address violence against women and girls in its digital dimensions and hold accountable the tech platforms that profit from this abuse.

But if the new law passes in its current format, it will leave women and girls facing violence and the threat of harm in their everyday online interactions.

In an event, co-hosted by Maria Miller MP and Baroness Nicky Morgan, experts, and leading organisations will discuss how the Online Safety Bill provides an essential vehicle to hold tech companies accountable for preventing and tackling VAWG and why a VAWG Code of Practice must accompany the Bill, to ensure tech companies take proactive steps to prevent VAWG in a comprehensive and systematic way.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition, Carnegie UK, Lorna Woods (Essex Law School), Clare McGlynn (Durham Law School), Glitch, NSPCC, Refuge, and 5Rights have worked together to develop a VAWG Code of Practice (CoP) that meets the rights and needs of women and girls, including those experiencing intersecting inequalities.

The CoP sets out how the regulator will recommend tech meets their legal obligations to identify, respond to and prevent VAWG on their platforms. A copy of the CoP can be downloaded here:

This would create safer online spaces for women and girls – spaces where action is taken to prevent abuse, perpetrators and the platforms that ignore this abuse face consequences, and our self-expression is not restricted by the threat of violence.

Register for the event here.