Building on Last Year’s Insights
Last year’s campaign gave us a wealth of learning through our webinars, where experts shared practical insights and “top tips” that remain highly relevant today. These resources are still available and worth revisiting at the SIE download Member’s Area, as they provide concrete tools for awareness, prevention, and action.
Learning from Experts and Survivors
In early September, Soroptimists had the chance to build on this knowledge by hearing Professor Olga Jurasz during SIE’s webinar “Technology-Facilitated Violence Against Women: Closing Gaps in Law and Policy Responses”. As a Director of the Centre for Protecting Women Online, she hosted the first annual conference at the Open University in London, which I was honoured to attend.
At the conference, filmmaker Patricia Franquesa presented her award-winning documentary: “My Sextortion Diary”. Her personal story of digital blackmail and resilience was a powerful reminder that behind every statistic lies a story of trauma, resilience, and the urgent need for justice. “Pati” decided to use her filmmaking skills to act, standing up for herself and others.
There are infinite stories of cyberviolence, making soroptimists READ THE SIGNS more relevant than ever before, so let us all make the virtual world a safe place for women and girls.
Why Cyberviolence Matters
Cyberviolence is not a secondary or “virtual” issue; it is a profound threat to equality, freedom of expression, and democracy. It mirrors patterns of domestic violence, power and control, escalation, victim-blaming, and institutional failure, but with even greater reach and inescapability. Online abuse follows women into their homes, workplaces, and private lives, often silencing their voices.
Laws must recognise cyberviolence as a distinct offence; survivors need accessible, publicly funded support; police and courts must be trained; and platforms must be held accountable for design choices that enable abuse. Prevention also means education from the earliest age, teaching consent, empathy, and equality, with boys and men stepping up as allies and upstanders.
Our message is clear: voluntary measures are not enough. READ THE SIGNS 2025 is a call for legal frameworks, survivor-centred solutions, and collective action.
Every woman has the right to live, speak, and thrive online as offline, without fear.
By Rita Nogueira Ramos,
SIE Vice President of Advocacy 2024-2025
"Sextortion Diary" by Patricia Franquesa
13 November at 18:00 CET on ZOOM
Join us for a webinar about Patricia Franquesa’s film “SEXTORTION DIARY”, as part of the preparations for the “Read the Signs” campaign.
Patricia Franquesa is a Spanish film director and founder of Gadea Films. One day, while she was in a café, her laptop was stolen. Shortly afterwards, a hacker began threatening to publish her intimate photos if she did not pay a large sum of money. For a while, she tried to seek help, went to the police, talked to her friends about the problem, and suffered greatly, isolated in her home.One day, after continuing to be blackmailed, she made a radical decision: to publish her intimate photos herself.The film has received several awards, including the Gaudí Award for Best Documentary.