Shreshtha Das is a Researcher/Advisor on Gender with Amnesty International, focusing on gender, racial justice, refugees, and migrants’ rights. In this interview, they discuss Amnesty International’s research on xenophobic, technology-facilitated gender-based violence against racialized migrant women and 2SLGBTQIA+ people in Canada.
Das analyzes online hate narratives, “great replacement” conspiracies, platform dynamics, anonymity, dehumanization, self-censorship, and the links between digital abuse, public participation, and offline safety.
In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks Shreshtha Das how policy change and public solidarity can address xenophobic technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in Canada. Das argues governments must confront structural xenophobia, fund community-based supports, ensure culturally accessible hotlines, mental health care, legal aid, documentation help, and survivor-centred redress. They warn that online dehumanization creates a “pipeline of hate” from racist stereotypes to normalized violence and offline harm, while urging everyday people to challenge scapegoating narratives publicly.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: People can frame resistance and solidarity as, in some ways, two sides of the same coin. But with regard to online spaces, people are forced to become more resilient, while also facing the mental health challenges that often come from the hate itself.
Another aspect we have discussed is the importance of policy change and political shifts, so that changes filter downstream into the culture and become more durable over time.
For example, it could involve a policy that has been passed, a political platform proposed by a party, certain political leaders or members of Parliament taking a principled stand consistently over a long period of time, or national organizations being brought more fully into this work.
How would that look in practical terms, from an expert perspective, in terms of working at the level of politics and institutions so that more durable changes filter downstream into society?
Shreshtha Das: I think we want to say that it has to tackle a number of different things.
One is the structural issue we were talking about earlier. You cannot tackle xenophobic TFGBV in an environment where xenophobia is actively anchored. So one part of this is addressing those structural conditions: holding people to account and making sure there is positive storytelling from racialized migrant communities themselves.
At the narrative level, the question becomes: what responsible narratives are we putting out?
The second practical piece is, as I mentioned, making sure there is decentralized funding for the things survivors themselves have identified as necessary. That includes hotlines, mental health support, and legal aid.
Survivors also need support to document online violence over time so they can make legal arguments where necessary. Legal processes need to be expedited and accessible. A lot of what is said online can be deleted easily, so there also needs to be support for capturing evidence.
There should also be reparations for the harms caused. Those are some of the tangible things that need to happen.
Funding needs to reach community-based organizations so they can do this work, including hotlines, mental health support, legal aid, documentation support, and culturally relevant survivor services.
While there should absolutely be national-level systems, there also need to be support structures run directly by community-based organizations that are more closely connected to people and their actual needs.
At the federal level, there also needs to be a holistic support system for people facing TFGBV, one that allows them to speak to someone, to have their concerns taken seriously, and to access meaningful support.
I think one important point I forgot to mention earlier is that the lack of comprehensive law also affects how reports are handled. When people report these experiences, they are sometimes told, “This is just online violence. What do you expect us to do? Just block them.”
So the first step is recognizing this as something that can have deeply harmful consequences for people’s lives.
From there, governments need to create broader infrastructures of support through consultation with affected communities, making sure people have practical access to services such as hotlines, mental health support, legal aid, and documentation assistance.
And because we are focusing specifically on racialized migrant communities, accessibility matters enormously. A great deal of support infrastructure can become inaccessible because of language barriers or lack of cultural relevance.
So governments also need to work closely with community-based organizations to ensure that support systems are translated, culturally accessible, and actually reachable for the people they are intended to serve. Information about rights and services should be distributed in ways that are easy to understand and widely accessible.
I wish I could say there was one simple practical solution, but there is not. It has to begin with genuinely listening to racialized migrant women and recognizing that their experiences of TFGBV are distinct. Governments then need to meaningfully account for those realities when designing systems of support, redress, and prevention, both for xenophobic TFGBV specifically and for TFGBV more broadly.
Jacobsen: I suppose the inverse of that question is this: what do people in the general public often think works for combating these issues, but which ends up being more symbolically meaningful than substantively effective?
Das: No, that is a really important question, and that is actually where many of our social media calls to action have been directed.
A lot of interviewees told us that these kinds of actions matter deeply to them. If you are asking about direct things ordinary people can do, one is to call out scapegoating narratives for what they are: myths.
Challenge those narratives. Show public solidarity with people who are being targeted. Ask them what they need. Call out hateful language when you encounter it.
People can also have conversations within their own families, support networks, and communities about how these hate-based narratives distract from real structural issues and rely on scapegoating and division.
So I think there is a great deal all of us can do: calling out hate when we see it, showing solidarity with targeted people, and doing the slower offline work of speaking with others so that these “us versus them” and divide-and-rule narratives become less effective.
Jacobsen: Were there any final thoughts or reflections you wanted to leave people with based on today’s conversation?
Das: Yeah, I think, if there is one thing I would really emphasize, it is why this piece of research is important at this particular juncture.
It is not just Canada. We are seeing anti-immigrant rhetoric globally that relies on almost the same narratives: that migrants are taking over, that they are creating economic strain, that they are moochers, parasites, and so on.
This research is our way of debunking those narratives and saying that we do not want to be divided by this “us versus them” framing.
It is also a way of raising the alarm about where digital spaces fit into all of this. My closing thought would be that what worries me most is the creation of a pipeline of hate.
What may appear at first to be isolated instances of dehumanizing language, or of certain groups being painted as threats, actually creates the conditions for violence. It helps justify violent action because people have been so dehumanized and portrayed as threats to the dominant idea of society.
Violence becomes normalized in online spaces, and then it percolates into offline spaces as well. It does not just stay online.
So, for me, the most worrying thing is how digital spaces are creating this pipeline of hate: from dehumanizing language and racist, harmful stereotypes, to the normalization of violence, and then to higher levels of violence offline.
Jacobsen: Thank you very, very much for your time today and for sharing your expertise. I will be in touch.
