Toolkit to Prevent Online Violence Against Adolescent Girls

The international non-governmental organization "Social Initiatives for Occupational Safety and Health" (LHSI) has offered professionals working with children a package of tools for the prevention of online violence against adolescent girls — the Toolkit for the prevention of online sexual violence against adolescent girls.

It is a compilation of resources designed, created or adapted and tested in several European projects involving seven EU countries.

"The toolkit is available on the organization's website free of charge and aims to raise awareness and prevent online sexual violence against teenage girls. — says project coordinator Natalia Lukyanova. "It provides professionals working with children, parents and caregivers with the necessary tools and information to effectively address this issue."

The Toolkit contains the following components:

1. Adolescent Girls Online Sexual Assault Training: A Guide for Professionals Working with Children This manual is recommended for publication by the Academic Council of the Faculty of Pedagogy of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. It was also tested in all three pilot regions of the project: Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Lviv regions.

Part 1 of the guide, entitled "Online Sexual Violence: Consequences and Countermeasures", focuses on the issue of online sexual violence against girls and provides instructions on how to use the CYBERSAFE online tool, as well as practical recommendations for conducting trainings.

Part 2 "Training Plans" contains four training plans, each focusing on one of the four main types of online sexual assault against girls.

The guide also contains appendices with training exercises for offline training, information on where complaints can be filed in Ukraine, and recommended sources.

2. Adaptation in Ukrainian of the online tool CYBERSAFE (4 modules), which was developed by international and national experts. CYBERSAFE is an online gaming tool for the prevention of online violence against women and girls among young people (13-16 years old), which can be used both in the classroom and in children's camps, etc. From now on, it is available in Ukrainian to facilitators working with teenagers.

CYBERSAFE promotes healthy relationships and gender equality online. The CYBERSAFE Handbook provides information and tools to prepare for and facilitate four workshops on gender-based violence online with the aim of raising awareness, encouraging and supporting young people to behave safely and responsibly online. This tool uses four strands of online violence against women and girls: sharing non-consensual sexual images, exploitation, coercion and threats, sexual harassment, and unwanted sexualization.

Both girls and boys can be victims of these types of online violence, but girls are more likely to be targeted, and incidents often lead to more negative consequences for girls. For example, girls are often judged and blamed more harshly than boys for being victimized.

3. Two educational animated videos for girls and boys, already available on the YouTube platform:

"The Consequences of Sharing a Girl's Nude Selfie Without Her Consent"

"What To Do If Your Nude Selfies Hit The Internet"

4. Booklet "Tips for Parents and Caregivers to Combat Online Sexual Violence". This booklet provides guidance on how to prevent online sexual assault and is specifically intended for parents and caregivers.