The Challenges of Digital Transformation in Rethinking Welfare: Innovative Strategies for Preventing and Combating Gender-Based Violence

The prevention and fight against gender-based violence represents a privileged area for questioning the welfare system and identifying innovative strategies capable of responding to emerging needs, also considering the digitalization of society, which has shifted some of these forms of violence from physical (offline) environments to digital (online) environments, primarily involving women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community as victims. This chapter therefore aims, on the one hand, to frame the issue of preventing and combating gender-based violence to rethink – from an integrated digital perspective – the contemporary welfare system, while also addressing the ambivalent nature of technologies, which can strengthen the protection of victims but also create new risks if not adequately designed and contextualized. On the other hand, it also emphasizes the need for an integrated approach that combines technological innovation, social justice, and the protection of fundamental rights.