A commitment against digital violence has been signed at the Office of the Ombudsman

The Ombudsman of the City of Buenos Aires organized an event in which the Letter of Commitment against Digital Gender Violence was signed with international human rights organizations, academic institutions and social organizations for women, children, diversity and technology .

The objective of this initiative -which contains ten points against digital violence- is to strengthen networks of consensus and joint work to raise awareness, prevent and eradicate this problem that affects the private and public trajectories of women and LGBTQ+ people.

The meeting was attended by representatives of Spotlight, UN Women Argentina, United Nations Population Fund, UNICEF, UNDP, Secretariat of the Monitoring Mechanism of the Convention of Belem do Pará (MESECVI) – OAS, Red de Editoras de Género, Faro Digital , Amnesty International Argentina, Grooming Argentina, Actresses Argentinas, Women in Games Argentina (WIGAr), Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth (CIPPEC), Avon Foundation, Women in Equality Foundation, Huésped Foundation, Latin American Justice Team and Gender (ELA), Association for Civil Rights (ADC), Association of Feminist Jurists of Argentina (AboFem), Casa Trans and Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), among other prestigious entities.

Regarding the massive meeting, the Ombudsman of Buenos Aires, María Rosa Muiños, said: “The meeting exceeded all our expectations and demonstrates the need to create collective spaces between those who, from different fields and perspectives, have worked to end to this type of violence.

At the end of the round of dialogue, the Mediator stressed that the emphasis was placed on multiple aspects of the violation of rights and expressed herself moved and challenged by the testimonies of some of the referents present who also suffered violence. directly in the digital environment.

“This project is very important because it opens the door for us to articulate among those who make up this group, communication campaigns that speak to victims, raise awareness in society as a whole and attract the attention of platform companies, the media and actors. institutional. whose responsibilities are unavoidable,” said Muiños.

Finally, he underlined: “Our organization works to defend the rights of people in vulnerable situations, flesh and blood people whose personal lives and their mental and physical health are affected by harassment in the networks; which often ends up being bullying in real life. This is why the motto that we want to install is: ‘the virtual is real’”.

Spotlight Initiative Ambassador Cecilia Suárez stressed that “this effort is extremely important for the future and for promoting a legal and legal framework that protects, modifies this reality and differentiates what is freedom of expression and what is not. is not”.

The resident representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Claudio Tomasi, indicated that “this agreement goes in the right direction in the fight against gender-based violence in the digital sphere. This is an issue that concerns us all and for the United Nations it is particularly important because it is a manifestation of gender discrimination and inequality”.

For her part, the head of the office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Mariana Isasi, called for “we can deal with violence in digital environments in the same way as we deal with violence in no any other space in life where women are victims”.

Likewise, the Deputy Director of Amnesty International Argentina, Paola García Rey, spoke about this new dimension of violence and the indivisibility between online and offline. In this sense, he celebrated the importance of this letter of alliance “which challenges the State, the platforms and the users to work for a world without gender violence”.

Finally, the deputy representative of UNICEF in Argentina, Sebastián Waisgrais, assured that “these kind of meetings are very relevant because they involve generating commitment and putting the issue of violence on the public agenda”. In addition, he referred to the risks associated with the use of technology and networks: “We are working to ensure that these commitments are put into practice and that violence is eradicated.”