This October, Gaia from Tender’s Youth Board spoke on a panel at the annual End Violence Against Women (EVAW) Coalition Prevention Conference in London. Here, she discusses this important experience.

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Young People and Misogyny in the Digital Age’ with discussions throughout the day centring on the online world and the vital need for intervention to end VAWG.

After introductions from Andrea Simon, Executive Director of EVAW, the day began with our ‘Imagining a Safe Internet’ youth panel. I joined speakers from Girlguiding, Let Me Know and Action Breaks Silence, to discuss what concerns us as young people about the internet and what a safer online space would look like.

Here, I reflected on my lived experiences as a young person who not only navigated adolescence during the early days of social media but also who had an abusive ex-boyfriend in her late teens. Despite this being my first time speaking on a VAWG panel, I felt incredibly empowered to use my lived experience of adolescent domestic abuse for good and call for change.

This was followed by a panel with Laura Bates, writer and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, Dolly Padalia from the School of Sexuality Education, and Anki Deo from HOPE Not Hate, who spoke about the impact of the manosphere, inceldom and extremist content on young people, specifically young boys. The panel emphasised the importance of early, open conversations with young people about equality, consent, and healthy relationships to better prepare them for navigating the Internet safely.

Next, we heard from Rani Govender from NSPCC and Dr Fiona Vera-Gray who discussed the harm that increasingly violent mainstream pornography has on sexual norms and beliefs. After analysing video titles on the landing pages of the three most popular pornography websites in the UK, Fiona’s research team found that 1 in 8 titles shown to first-time users describe sexual activity that constitutes sexual violence. Rani also spoke of the devastating effects violent porn and deepfake technology can have on young people’s wellbeing, as reflected in calls to Childline.

The event ended with a thought-provoking workshop led by Internet Matters, where we explored in small groups how media literacy can be implemented in schools.

It was such a surreal full-circle moment going from citing many of these academics, charities and VAWG experts in my Master’s Degree RSE dissertation to being in the same room with them and speaking with them directly.

The key takeaways from the conference were:

• The importance of education in schools, specifically improving media literacy and critical thinking skills in young people
• The need for a whole-school approach to combating online harms
• Helping young boys understand that accountability is a positive thing
• The role and responsibility of tech companies in preventing harmful content from being circulated online.

As a young person starting her career in VAWG policy and research, I found the whole day incredibly valuable.

Thank you for this special opportunity to speak and participate in the event. It was fantastic to be in a room with such passionate, inspiring individuals!

Find out more about the Tender Youth Board.