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70% of women human rights defenders, activists and journalists report facing online violence linked to their work.
41% say digital abuse has led to offline attacks, including stalking and physical assault.
Offline harm against women journalists has more than doubled since 2020, rising to 42%.
Nearly one in four respondents experienced AI-assisted abuse, such as deepfakes and manipulated content.
UN Women warns online violence is driving women out of public life and undermining democracy and free expression.
Seven in ten women human rights defenders, activists and journalists have experienced online violence linked to their work, according to a United Nations study warning that digital abuse is increasingly fuelling real-world attacks.
The report, Tipping Point: The Chilling Escalation of Violence Against Women in the Public Sphere, was released on December 8, 2025 by UN Women and the European Commission, with research partners including City St George’s, University of London, UNESCO and the International Center for Journalists.
Researchers said the findings show that online abuse has reached “a tipping point”, with four in ten of those surveyed reporting offline harm connected to digital attacks. The study draws on responses from more than 6,400 participants in 119 countries.
Sarah Hendricks, Director of Policy at UN Women, said the data confirms that digital abuse “is not virtual – it’s real violence with real-world consequences”.
“Women who speak up for our human rights, report the news or lead social movements are being targeted with abuse designed to shame, silence and push them out of public debate,” she said. “Increasingly, those attacks do not stop at the screen — they end at women’s front doors.”
Women journalists and media workers are the most vulnerable. In a comparable UNESCO-published survey in 2020, 20 per cent of women journalists linked offline attacks to online abuse. That proportion has more than doubled to 42 per cent in the new 2025 survey in a shift researchers described as “dangerous and potentially deadly”.
Professor Julie Posetti, lead researcher and director of TheNerve’s Information Integrity Initiative, said the data shows a sharp escalation against women in public life. “In the age of AI-fueled abuse and rising authoritarianism, online violence against women in the public sphere is increasing,” she said. “But what’s truly disturbing is the evidence that women journalists’ experience of offline harm associated with online violence has more than doubled since 2020.”
Nearly one in four women surveyed said they had experienced AI-assisted online violence, including deepfake imagery and manipulated content. Exposure was highest among writers and public communicators focusing on human rights issues, at 30 per cent.
Researchers warned that cheap, accessible generative AI tools have made it easier to fabricate realistic abusive content and distribute it widely through platforms optimised for engagement.
The report defined technology-facilitated violence as abuse, threats, surveillance, doxxing, image-based harm and other attacks enabled or amplified by digital tools. It noted that such violence is increasingly used to suppress women’s participation in public life, restrict freedom of expression and curtail democratic debate.
Seventy per cent of women respondents working in human rights, activism and journalism said they had experienced online violence. Three-quarters of women journalists reported online attacks in 2025, compared with 73 per cent in 2020.
The findings come at the close of the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign, which this year focuses on digital abuse. UN Women is urging governments to strengthen laws recognising technology-facilitated violence as a human rights violation, and for tech companies to face tougher accountability.
This report is the first of four based on the global survey, which will examine intersectional harms and the effectiveness of current response mechanisms and be released over the next year.