The Parliamentary Assembly has developed a substantial body of work on the protection of women’s and girls’ rights and digital platform governance. In resolutions spanning from 2011 to 2025, the Assembly has consistently affirmed that gender equality, safety, and democratic participation are inseparable values requiring active protection.
These texts acknowledge both the transformative potential and the serious risks of the digital sphere for women and girls. Social media has become vital for amplifying women’s voices, enabling solidarity networks, and increasing the visibility of gender-based violence. Yet Resolution 2614 (2025) explicitly recognises that an organised backlash against women’s rights, driven by disinformation campaigns, is increasingly amplified through social media. The same platforms that empower women also expose them to cyberbullying, harassment, non-consensual dissemination of intimate images, and hate speech. Situations also occur where the presumption of innocence is ignored, women are publicly labelled as guilty, and their access to justice becomes more difficult due to pressure from social media.
As Resolution 2274 (2019) underlined, women in public life face disproportionate levels of online harassment and organised defamation, coercing them into silence and threatening democratic discourse. Resolution 2547 (2024) further highlights that girls are particularly vulnerable in the digital environment, often without access to effective remedies.
Efforts to regulate this field remain highly sensitive, as protective measures are frequently instrumentalised by governments as pretexts for censorship. In this context, a comprehensive and independent examination by the Assembly, and the development of concrete recommendations for member States, would constitute a critical contribution to protecting women’s and girls’ fundamental rights in the digital age without compromising democratic freedoms.