Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence Violence is often imagined in physical terms, as a blow, a bruise, a locked door, a threat that...

Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence

Violence is often imagined in physical terms, as a blow, a bruise, a locked door, a threat that occupies visible space. Yet in the digital age, harm has learned to travel differently. Technology facilitated gender based violence describes abuse carried out, intensified, or prolonged through phones, platforms, and other digital tools against someone because of gender. According to UNFPA, it includes online harassment, cyberstalking, image based abuse, impersonation, and the sharing of private information. What makes it especially insidious is not only its range, but its ability to enter ordinary life unnoticed. A device meant to connect can become a leash. A public platform can turn into a theatre of humiliation in which the audience is limitless and the exit difficult to find.

To treat such abuse as unreal because it occurs through a screen is to misunderstand both violence and fear. [I] The message may be digital, but the consequences are not. A threat sent at midnight can follow a woman into the next morning. [II] A manipulated image can stain her reputation in classrooms, workplaces, and homes she once moved through without calculation. Technology does not create misogyny from nothing, but it gives old contempt a faster vehicle, a wider stage, and a convenient disguise. [III] They withdraw, go silent, or reduce their visibility, not because they have nothing to say, but because speaking begins to feel like exposure. [IV]

That is why this issue exceeds private suffering. When women and girls are pushed out of digital spaces, public life itself is diminished. Debate grows narrower. Opportunity becomes conditional. Freedom begins to carry a surcharge. A society cannot praise participation while allowing intimidation to set its terms. Nor is this merely a question of unkind behaviour online. Repeated often enough, such abuse redraws the boundaries of who feels entitled to appear, to speak, and to remain visible without fear.

The answer, then, is not to ask women and girls to disappear more carefully. It is to make disappearance unnecessary. UNFPA argues for stronger laws, greater accountability, and technology designed with safety and privacy at its core. That response matters because progress is hollow when it expands access while leaving power untouched. A connected world should enlarge freedom, not place it under glass.

[Adapted from https://www.unfpa.org/TFGBV]

Question 31: Where in the passage does the following sentence best fit?

Under that pressure, many women and girls begin to edit themselves before the world can edit them first.

A. [I]        B. [II]        C. [III]        D. [IV]

Question 32: The phrase “become a leash” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to __________.

A. serve as a tool of control        B. turn into a public threat

C. create a feeling of shame        D. make escape seem easier

Question 33: The word "it" in paragraph 4 refers to __________.

A. disappearance        B. stronger laws        C. progress        D. accountability

Question 34: Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a form of technology facilitated gender based violence?

A. cyberstalking                B. impersonation        

C. image based abuse                D. workplace discrimination

Question 35: Which of the following best summarises paragraph 3?

A. Digital abuse becomes most damaging when women and girls begin to avoid public platforms, even though stronger moderation may still protect open debate.

B. Technology facilitated abuse harms more than individuals because it narrows public life by making participation, opportunity, and visibility less secure.

C. The issue matters mainly because repeated intimidation weakens online discussion, although its effects on freedom and public belonging remain limited.

D. When harassment online is treated as ordinary unkindness, public debate suffers first, while other social consequences become visible only much later.

Question 36: The word “diminished” in paragraph 3 is OPPOSITE in meaning to __________.

A. spread        B. protected        C. expanded        D. exposed

Question 37: Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. Harm carried out through digital tools can move beyond the screen and reshape how women and girls behave in everyday life.

B. Digital abuse becomes especially dangerous only when it leads to visible threats in homes, workplaces, or classrooms.

C. Technology facilitated violence is mainly sustained by anonymous platforms, while private devices tend to play a smaller role in extending harm.

D. Women and girls usually reduce their visibility online because public platforms offer too little space for meaningful participation.

Question 38: Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 4?

A. In a modern world, freedom must be kept safe behind glass so that it can be enlarged through stronger laws and greater accountability.

B. People should use digital tools to connect with each other, even if it means their freedom is limited and protected like a fragile object.

C. Connectivity ought to expand human rights rather than restricting them to a fragile state where they are observed but cannot be fully exercised.

D. The purpose of a connected world is to ensure that freedom is visible to everyone, similar to how an object is displayed under glass for safety.

Question 39: Which of the following can most likely be inferred from the passage?

A. Legal reforms alone are likely to solve technology facilitated abuse if they succeed in removing the most extreme cases from public platforms.

B. If digital spaces remain accessible in theory but unsafe in practice, equality in public participation will still be seriously undermined.

C. Because technology only intensifies attitudes that already exist, the design of digital tools matters less than changing private behaviour offline.

D. The most effective response to online abuse is to help women and girls protect themselves by limiting their visibility more strategically.

Question 40: Which of the following best summarises the passage?

A. Technology facilitated gender based violence is dangerous not only because it extends older patterns of misogyny into digital spaces, but also because it intensifies fear and leaves many women and girls less able to participate freely.

B. Technology facilitated gender based violence should be treated as a serious modern threat because it spreads through everyday digital tools, damages reputation, and gradually pushes many women and girls toward silence and withdrawal.

C. Technology facilitated gender based violence is not a lesser form of harm but a far-reaching system of intimidation that invades ordinary life, shrinks public freedom, and demands structural rather than self-erasing responses.

D. A connected world cannot be called genuine progress if it increases access to participation while still allowing intimidation, unequal safety, and weak accountability to shape who can remain visible without fear.