Preventing Tech-based Abuse of Women Grants Program - Round 1

The Program specifically seeks to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence (hereafter referred to as ‘tech-based abuse of women’). For the purposes of these guidelines, tech-based abuse can be broadly described as any behaviour that uses technology to harm others based on their sexual or gender identity.

Women are a key focus of the program because they are represented in statistics as being at greater risk of violence and abuse, including from tech abuse. The majority of reports to eSafety under our cyberbullying and adult cyber abuse schemes, are received from women and girls. Women experience online abuse that is personal, sexualised, often violent and threatening, and which can cause real, enduring harm.

The Program will complement the existing work of eSafety to help safeguard Australians at  risk from online harms and to promote safer, more positive online experiences.

The objectives of the Program are to:

1. increase public awareness about the prevalence and impact of tech-based abuse against women and their children, including when it occurs in the context of family and domestic violence, and dating violence
2. support development of, and access to, innovative initiatives, including new programs and resources that address the drivers of tech-based abuse against women and their children and improve women’s safety, including in specific demographic or geographic communities
3. support initiatives that aim to challenge and shift the prevailing social norms that contribute to tech-based abuse against women and their children
4. support initiatives that promote positive and respectful behaviour and accountability in men and boys that perpetrate or may perpetrate tech-based abuse against women and their children.