Violence Against Women in Elections Framework

The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) is proud to release an update to the 2016 publication, Violence Against Women in Elections: A Framework for Assessment, Monitoring, and Response.

With the 2016 publication, IFES established a robust and comprehensive definition for the types of harm women face in the context of the electoral process. The framework helped guide assessments of violence against women in elections (VAWE) in countries around the world, documenting and classifying the range of harms and challenges that women experience when seeking to exercise their political and electoral rights.

Now, in 2026, this new release builds on knowledge gained from 10 years of implementing the original VAWE framework. It streamlines the data collection process for the VAWE assessment, and adds a focus on the increased role that online violence and gendered disinformation – including violence and gendered disinformation facilitated and exacerbated by artificial intelligence (AI) – play in the electoral context.

The original 2016 publication remains available for reference; continue scrolling to "From the Archive" to download the 2016 Framework.