10/12/2025
BREAKING THE DIGITAL CHAINS: UNITE AGAINST THE CULTURE OF SILENCE ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
As the world marks Human Rights Day and concludes the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, a new and urgent front has emerged in the fight for women’s safety: digital violence. Under this year’s theme, UNiTE to End Digital Violence Against All Women and Girls, governments, civil society, and technology actors are being pushed to confront a growing reality. Misogyny is evolving and accelerating online, creating a fast-expanding form of abuse with profound real-world consequences.
Across Africa, rapid digital transformation has unlocked opportunities for learning, connection, and empowerment. In countries like Nigeria, where internet pe*******on now exceeds 70 percent, digital platforms have become essential to civic participation and economic inclusion. Yet these same spaces have increasingly become battlegrounds. Women and girls are facing harassment, cyberstalking, image-based abuse, sextortion, disinformation campaigns, blackmail, and AI-enabled threats such as deepfake po*******hy. These acts are not minor disruptions. They are forms of violence designed to silence, intimidate, and undermine women’s autonomy.
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) reflects the same harmful gender norms that suppress women offline, but digital tools amplify abuse with unprecedented speed, reach, and anonymity. Female journalists, activists, politicians, entrepreneurs, and even teenage girls are targeted in ways that mirror and magnify structural inequalities. Too often, the outcome is the same: withdrawal, silence, and lost opportunities.
A major driver of this silence is fear. Survivors hesitate to report incidents because they anticipate blame, shame, or disbelief. Others fear retaliation or lack confidence in law enforcement, where digital literacy and case handling capabilities remain limited. Legal frameworks in many countries are not fully equipped to address evolving threats like deepfakes, and where laws exist, enforcement remains inconsistent. Communities also play a role; patriarchal attitudes often frame women’s digital presence as a moral risk, making survivors fear stigma more than the abuse itself.
Despite these challenges, momentum toward change is building. Governments are gradually strengthening digital safety and cybersecurity frameworks. Civil society organizations, including AGVO and its partners, are expanding awareness campaigns, community dialogues, and survivor support pathways. Grassroots movements are challenging harmful narratives, and technologists are developing tools that detect and counter online abuse. The response must be coordinated and multisectoral: stronger laws, responsive justice institutions, community-led prevention efforts, survivor-centered support, ethical technology design, and accessible digital literacy programs.
This is a collective responsibility. If technology can be weaponized, it can equally be leveraged for protection, empowerment, and justice. Ending digital violence is essential to safeguarding human rights, protecting democratic participation, and ensuring that the benefits of the digital age are accessible to all, without fear.
The UNiTE campaign reinforces that awareness alone is not enough. Real progress requires accountability, prevention, and solidarity. AGVO joins the global call: from silence to action, from digital harm to digital safety, we must build systems that ensure women and girls thrive both online and offline.
