Abstract
<jats:p>This report is based on a study on gender–based cyber violence against women and girls in Croatia, Portugal and Spain, commissioned by the Ombudsperson for Gender Equality of the Republic of Croatia. The study is the final and summary report of the project “Raising awareness about gender-based cyber violence and advocating for a safer online environment for women and girls (bE-SAFE)” financed by the European Union within the call of the “Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV)” programme. Spanish youth report the highest victimisation rates on most items, followed by Portugal, with Croatia generally being the lowest. The exception is threats of physical violence, where Croatia's youth report substantially higher rates than either Portugal or Spain. Across all three countries, body appearance insults consistently rank first or joint first. This finding implies the centrality of bodily self-presentation as the primary target of online aggression regardless of the national context. One finding is consistent across all three countries: females are more targeted by unwanted sexual messages, and males are more targeted by threats of physical violence. This female-sexual/male-physical split represents the most robust cross-national gender pattern in the data. Beyond this, national specificities emerge: Croatia uniquely shows a higher male victimisation on appearance-based insults, while Spain shows pronounced gender divergences overall. LGBTIQ youth are consistently the most victimised group across all three countries. The pattern is universal but its shape varies. Croatia and Portugal show the strongest LGBTIQ overrepresentation for reputational aggression (lies about sexual behaviour), while Spain concentrates LGBTIQ vulnerability in coercive sexual behaviours. Regarding the children who are victims of GBCV in Croatia: being younger is associated with a higher victimisation, which means that children lack protective resources available to older youth. Croatian children may inhabit less supervised online spaces. As digital engagement intensifies through adolescence, victimisation likely accumulates. However, in Portugal and Spain children are more frequently exposed to a wider range of forms of violent cyber behaviours than the children in Croatia. Croatia shows the largest gender gaps among children, with girls being victims more often, followed by Portugal, and with Spain showing the most modest differences. Spanish youth report the highest perpetration rates on all comparable items, followed by Portugal and then Croatia. This higher perpetration in Spain is consistent with the higher victimisation rates observed there, which may point to a context where cyber violence is both more commonly experienced and more commonly enacted. The three countries present three distinct developmental models for the gendering of perpetration. In Croatia, self-reported perpetration is gender-neutral among children and becomes male-dominated among youth. In Portugal, moderate male predominance among children partially attenuates among youth. In Spain, strong male predominance is present from childhood and persists into youth. These divergent trajectories may imply that the relationship between gender and cyber violence perpetration is culturally mediated. It is interesting to note that Croatia and Portugal follow a "childhood peak" where both victimisation and perpetration are considerably higher among children and decline with age. In Spain, however, the prevalence of GBCV in terms of experience and perpetration is similar in both age groups. Across all three countries and both age groups, generally, females are disproportionately targeted by sexually intrusive behaviours and males by physical threats. LGBTIQ youth are the most victimised group in every country. Across all three countries, risky online behaviour emerged as the strongest and most consistent predictor of GBCV involvement, whether as a witness, victim, or perpetrator. Higher media literacy was associated with lower levels of both victimisation and perpetration in Croatia and Portugal, though this protective effect was less consistent in Spain. Both victims and perpetrators reported poorer mental health, greater loneliness, and negative academic outcomes, though the data do not allow us to establish the direction of causality. Girls and women reported higher levels of distress following victimisation than boys and men, while men were more likely to resort to passive coping strategies. Interestingly, "doing nothing" was among the most common reactions to victimisation across all three countries, and substantial proportions of those affected told no one about their experiences. Perpetrators were predominantly known to victims (friends, partners, and acquaintances), rather than anonymous strangers.</jats:p>