Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure the Online Safety Bill improves protections for women and girls.

The Government is committed to tackling violence against women and girls, and we have taken significant steps to strengthen the forthcoming Online Safety Bill to improve protections for women and girls. Offences relating to sexual images (including revenge and extreme pornography), harassment and cyberstalking will be included in the list of priority offences on the face of the Bill. As a result, platforms will have to take steps to search for, remove and stop people from being exposed to this content and criminal behaviour. We have also accepted the Law Commission’s recommendations to introduce a new harms-based offence and threatening communications offence, which will go further to tackle harmful online abuse of women and girls. We are also making changes to the Bill to ensure children are protected from pornography content, wherever it appears online.