Digital Violence Is Not Just Online Abuse

27th December 2025

Over this year’s 16 Days of Activism, Imkaan has focused on forms of digital violence that are rarely named, but deeply harmful. For Black and minoritised women, violence is shaped not just by individual perpetrators, but by the government systems and media narratives they are forced to navigate. This reflection brings together, in brief, what we’ve seen and what must change.

Across this 16 Days of Activism, we’ve shown that digital violence isn’t just online abuse.

For Black and minoritised women, digital violence is inflicted through government systems - and amplified by media narratives.

On one side, government tech: e-visas, digital IDs, data-sharing and hostile environment systems that decide who gets safety, and who gets shut out.

These systems can block women from housing, income, immigration support and protection.

On another side: Media misrepresentation and online misinformation. Headlines that dehumanise migrants, fuel far-right narratives and spill into real-world violence. Communities attacked. Women targeted.

To break this link between digital systems, media harm and offline violence, we need systemic change.

  • First, end digital-only routes to safety and justice.
    Survivors must be able to access support without relying on a single device, app or portal.

  • Second, build a firewall between support services and immigration enforcement.
    Getting help must never expose women to immigration control.

  • Third, design government tech around survivors’ realities.
    Assume coercive control, shared phones, low data, unstable access, and involve Black and minoritised women’s organisations in the design.

We also need to change how harm is created and spread through the media.

  • Strengthen press accountability so harmful reporting has consequences, not just complaints procedures.

  • Create accessible redress so affected communities aren’t left to fight news outlets alone.

  • Ensure regulators address digital distribution, and the modern ways of sharing information such as social media, algorithms and AI, not just front-page headlines.

Those with platforms and power must stop amplifying harmful narratives, and specialist organisations supporting Black and minoritised women must be properly funded to deal with the fallout.

Digital violence is structural.

Ending it means changing the systems and stories that make it possible.

Change the tech.
Change the narratives.
Change the conditions that allow digital violence to continue being facilitated.