Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TGBV), or tech abuse, is a problem of planetary proportions. All around the world, abuse and violence is being perpetrated through technology, and new forms of TGBV are continuously emerging. The scale and depth of the problem, and the resulting harm to women and people of marginalised genders, demands urgent action.
From January 2021 - June 2022, Chayn and End Cyber Abuse, went on a journey to understand the nature of TGBV and how we can address it. The result is Orbits: a guide on how we can design interventions to tech abuse that are intersectional, survivor-centred, and trauma-informed. Co-created with thinkers, practitioners, and survivors from around the world, the guide focuses on three areas that are vital for effectively tackling tech abuse: technology, research, and policy. It explores how systems are failing survivors and how we can advance a different approach that leaves no survivor behind.
Orbits includes an overview of what TGBV is and how it impacts survivors, analysis of how existing responses from technology, research, and policy are lacking, and suggestions for how we can build better systems in these three areas. It proposes a set of design principles as the basis of an intersectional, survivor-centred, and trauma-informed approach, and provides examples of what they look like in practice. It showcases work being done to tackle tech abuse through case studies, and offers practical tools for applying the principles to your own work and context.
Orbits was supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung’s Reducing Inequalities Through Intersectional Practice programme.
There are two versions of the field guide available for download below - a designed version and a plain text version optimised for accessibility and print. You can also download individual chapters if you’d like to dive in to certain sections.
Orbits full guide - designed.pdf
Orbits full guide - plain text version optimised for accessibility and print.pdf
Orbits - taxonomy of tech abuse only.pdf
Orbits - survivor stories only.pdf
Orbits - design principles and applications only.pdf
Orbits - technology chapters only.pdf
Orbits - research chapters only.pdf
Orbits - policy chapters only.pdf