The European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW) has submitted its response to the European Commission’s draft guidelines on the implementation of Article 22 of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which establishes the trusted flagger mechanism.
While the guidelines provide operational clarity, they insufficiently reflect the complex realities of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in online environments. The submission identifies key gaps regarding inconsistent recognition of illegal content, uneven enforcement outcomes, and the transnational nature of abuse. Without stronger integration of VAWG expertise, the mechanism risks reinforcing asymmetries in enforcement and failing to protect women.
Trusted Flaggers and Violence Against Women and Girls
Under Article 22, designated entities with expertise submit notices of illegal content that must be prioritised. However, the identification and enforcement of illegal content relating to violence against women and girls remains inconsistent and uneven.
The submission highlights several operational challenges, including:
- Certain forms of violence, particularly those linked to sexual exploitation, coercion, and degradation, are not always recognized as illegal content or are deprioritised.
- Enforcement mechanisms simultaneously under-protect women from online violence while over-restricting their participation in public discourse on matters directly affecting their rights, such as sex-based rights and safeguarding women-only spaces.
- Women’s rights defenders face cross-border harassment and jurisdictional complexity that limits effective response.
Key Recommendations
To ensure the trusted flagger mechanism achieves its objectives, ENoMW recommends:
- Explicitly recognising violence against women and girls—including sexual exploitation and technology-facilitated violence—as a specialised domain of expertise.
- Ensuring the assessment of violence against women considers the cumulative context of online behaviour, recognising that repeated insults or targeted intimidation may collectively constitute unlawful harassment even where individual posts do not.
- Developing targeted training for Digital Services Coordinators and online platforms on identifying VAWG-related harm and cross-border abuse patterns.
- Supporting the participation of specialised women’s rights organisations through dedicated funding and capacity-building.
- Incorporating safeguards to ensure enforcement does not disproportionately impact women’s lawful expression while failing to address coordinated abuse.
ENoMW believes that strengthening the trusted flagger mechanism through a sex-based and rights-based approach is essential to ensuring that women and girls are effectively protected from technology-facilitated violence while safeguarding their participation in democratic debate online.