Ministers Rally for Stronger Laws on Digital Violence Against Women

Croatia and UN Women convened a high-level ministerial roundtable during the United Nations General Assembly's High-Level Week, bringing together government leaders, researchers, and survivors to confront the escalating crisis of technology-facilitated violence against women and girls. The session produced concrete new commitments — including the world's first ban on nudification tools — and a blunt message from more than a dozen countries: legislation is advancing, but enforcement and platform accountability remain dangerously behind.

• UK announces world's first ban on nudification apps and new UN-hosted technical support desk for countries tackling digital gender-based violence
• Survivor advocate tells ministers 300 million children are sexually exploited online each year and calls for AI-generated abuse material to be criminalized immediately
• Research reveals 181 nudification websites attract 40 million monthly visitors, with the misogynistic "manosphere" ecosystem generating billions of impressions
• Croatia, Türkiye, Nigeria, and Bangladesh detail national legislative reforms criminalizing deepfake pornography, revenge porn, cyberstalking, and femicide
• IBM and NYU researchers urge international safety standards for AI systems, presenting open-source tools and a cybersecurity model redesigned for intimate partner abuse
• Croatia pledges to elevate women's digital safety to the UN Security Council if elected for the 2030–31 term

Why it matters: The roundtable elevated technology-facilitated violence against women from a niche digital-rights concern to a mainstream political priority at the General Assembly level, with a sitting prime minister framing the issue as a defining challenge of the digital age.