10 Dec 2023 Workshop will help young people take action against online gender-based violence

A workshop being held 11–14 December is engaging young church leaders in preventing gender inequities and advocating for gender justice in social media and other online spaces.

Together, participants in the event “Taking Action Against Online Sexual and Gender-Based Violence” will review community standards on social media platforms, as well as national and international policies on online violence.

They will also learn how to monitor social media and use the evidence in advocacy, as well as how to create social media posts and a personal action plan that can be expanded into an organizational strategy to help build an Ecumenical Media Observatory on gender cyberviolence.

Discussions will also include an overview of today’s media landscape, including the most common kinds of micro-aggressions, abuse, and cyberviolence.

A “Thursdays in Black Youth Initiative,” to engage young people in work towards a world without rape and violence, will be launched at the close of the workshop on 14 December.

A recent global study indicates that close to 60 percent of young women aged 15–25 said they had experienced some form of online harassment on social media, and nearly half had been threatened with sexual or physical violence.

WACC and the World Council of Churches (WCC) are organizing the workshop, with participation by invitation. The curriculum combines WACC’s media monitoring methodology and education and advocacy on communication and gender justice with WCC’s networks and commitment to overcoming sexual and gender-based violence.

The workshop is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.