28/11/2025
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During these 16 Days of Activism, the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development stands with the global movement to end all forms of violence against women and girls, online and offline.
Earlier this year, our founder, Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, called on African Member States to ratify and implement the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AU-CEVAWG), a landmark instrument that, for the first time, recognizes technology-facilitated violence as a growing threat to women’s rights, leadership, and participation.
Digital violence does not only harm individual women; it reshapes the landscape of public leadership.
Women who aspire to lead, and those who already hold public roles, face disproportionate levels of online harassment, coordinated disinformation campaigns, threats, and image-based attacks designed to silence them, delegitimize their leadership, and push them out of public life.
For many women, the cost of speaking up online has become a barrier to stepping into leadership at all.
We stand firmly with efforts to:
🔸Expand legal protections for women and girls in digital spaces
🔸 Invest in policy frameworks like AU-CEVAWG that address both offline and online violence
🔸 Ensure women leaders can participate freely, safely, and visibly, without fear of digital reprisals
🔸 Promote survivor-centered responses that protect women navigating public platforms
🔸 Strengthen digital resilience and safety for emerging and established women leaders
As we mark , we echo Madam Sirleaf’s call: Ratify AU-CEVAWG. Protect women and girls everywhere, including online, so they can lead without fear.
Orange the world. End violence. Elevate women’s leadership.
