Study on gender-based violence released

The Arab Center for the Development of Social Media (7amleh) and the Swedish Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation released a study on gender-based violence on social networks and the Internet entitled: A Violent Network – Gender-Based Violence Against Palestinian: Women in Virtual Space. The research reveals that gender-based violence has augmented during the past few years in the form of hacking accounts, publishing personal details, extortion, receiving pictures with inappropriate content among other practices. As a result, one in four Palestinian women closed their social media accounts and withdrew from the Internet. The study recommends enhanced legislation to counter such phenomenon which the study participants attributed to male chauvinistic upbringing and lacking of supervision by the family.