Media coverage of violence against women reaches ‘dismal’ low, report finds
TL;DR
Analysis finds stories citing terms of misogynistic abuse fell to 1.3% of global online news in 2025 Media coverage of violence against women and girls and misogynistic harassment is at a “pitiful” low, despite a proliferation of high-profile cases of men abusing women and children, and a rise in AI-assisted violence against women and girls, new research shows. An analysis of 1.14bn online stories published worldwide between 2017 and 2025 found that the proportion of articles that include terms relating to misogynistic abuse dropped to a “dismal” 1.3% of all global online news in 2025, the lowest level in that period. Coverage peaked at 2.2% in 2018, the height of the #MeToo movement. In Africa, where multiple conflicts have involved extreme levels of sexual violence, coverage sank to a nine-year low of 1.18% in 2024. Continue reading...
Nauti's Take
The research delivers hard data that NGOs and journalism advocates can use to demand concrete editorial change — a real lever for structural impact. The mismatch is alarming: AI-assisted violence against women is growing while media attention hits a nine-year low.
Anyone building or deploying AI products should actively integrate violence-against-women prevention into safety frameworks, not treat it as an afterthought.
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