Girl at computer. Credit: UNFPA Central African Republic/Karel Prinsloo
 
A bold action by governments, tech companies, and all communities is needed to confront the rising tech-facilitated GBV that is silencing women’s voices and threatening hard-won gains in Africa.

By Sennen Hounton and Lydia Zigomo
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 7 2026 (IPS)

New estimates show that violence against women and girls remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world – and that one of its fastest-growing frontiers is the digital space.

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence includes online harassment, cyberstalking, image-based abuse, deepfake exploitation and coordinated digital attacks, and all of these are proliferating.

Anonymous accounts, weak reporting systems, and limited legal consequences have enabled perpetrators to weaponize technology to shame, silence, and violate women and girls at unprecedented scale and speed.

Africa is no exception.

Across the continent, disturbing patterns are emerging: Girls are facing cyberbullying and sextortion. Women leaders and human rights defenders are disproportionately targeted through coordinated online abuse designed to intimidate them out of public life.

During elections, women in public roles report harassment, smear campaigns and doxxing – tactics meant to silence civic participation.

In humanitarian settings – from the Sahel to the Lake Chad Basin to Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – displaced women and girls rely on digital tools to stay connected and access essential services.

Yet these same tools expose them to surveillance, extortion, blackmail and exploitation.

In conflict contexts, online threats have escalated into offline consequences – including intimidation, detention and physical violence.

Despite the scale of the problem, most cases remain invisible because technology companies, justice systems and communities have not kept pace. Reporting mechanisms are often ineffective.

Digital safety is rarely taught in schools or homes. Survivors face retaliation and victim-blaming. Perpetrators, and the platforms that enable them, are almost never held accountable.

The consequences are severe. Technology-facilitated violence impacts mental health, restricts mobility, destroys livelihoods and erodes confidence. “This virtual world can have real emotional impacts. It’s not enough to say ignore it or log off,” a 24-year-old woman in Chad told UNFPA.

Other young women in Africa also describe witnessing or experiencing harms with real-world impacts: “My page was hacked, I was forced to do things against my will,” a 31-year-old woman from Liberia said.

“Someone had published naked photos and videos of me in our local village Facebook group,” a young woman in Kenya shared. “I gathered the courage and went to a police station to report the incident. The officers I spoke to first admonished me and told me that this was not a criminal case, but rather a case of indecent behaviour on my part.”

In aggregate, these harms are reshaping the digital public sphere in ways that exclude women and girls.

When girls abandon online learning for fear their images may be misused, or when women delete their accounts to escape harassment, societies lose leadership, innovation and the voices essential to progress.

Gender equality cannot advance when half the population is pushed out of digital spaces.

That is why UNFPA and partners convened the first-ever Africa Symposium on Technology-facilitated Gender-based Violence in November, convening leaders in digital rights and gender-based violence prevention and response. It is time to build alliances and explore solutions. Africa is home to multiple hubs of technological innovation, and to the world’s youngest population.

As the digital divide slowly closes, we must ensure that the technology being adopted is safe, private and secure, and does not reinforce or amplify existing gender and social inequalities.

Symposium attendees recognized the need for a bold, coordinated response, one that follows the same principles that guide all efforts to end gender-based violence: dignity, consent, confidentiality, privacy, and survivor-centered care.

We must create a world where “African innovators lead the way in designing digital ecosystems that are safe, ecosystems that are inclusive and empowering for all, and in particular for women and marginalized communities,” said Judy Karioko, from the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) in Kenya, at one of the Symposium’s sessions.

UNFPA is committed to making every space – physical or digital – safe for women and girls in all their diversity. Through the Making All Spaces Safe programme, supported by Global Affairs Canada, concrete action is being taken across Africa, including Benin, Ghana, Kenya and Tunisia, to integrate technology risks into efforts to end gender-based violence.

But no single institution can end digital violence alone. Governments, tech companies, educators, civil society, faith leaders, families – and every digital citizen – share responsibility.

The world’s future begins with Africa. As a region, and as a global community, we cannot wait. Because if we fail to make the online world safe, we fail to protect the future of girls, and the world growing up in the digital age.

Dr. Sennen Hounton is the UNFPA Regional Director for West and Central Africa, while Ms. Lydia Zigomo is the UNFPA Regional Director for East and Southern Africa

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Woman gives birth to healthy baby in …., Democratic Republic of the Congo, facilitated by the delivery that day of emergency reproductive health kits. Credit: UNFPA

By Julitta Onabanjo, Shoko Arakaki and Sennen Hounton
GENEVA / JOHANNESBURG / KINSHASA, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Eleven-year-old “Anne” went to a health facility with her mother in the conflict-affected province of Ituri, in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. At first, she could barely tell her story.

Traumatized and frightened, she feared reprisal from her attackers. Painstakingly, she recounted the brutal rape she had suffered and the pain that she felt in her body. It took her a while to gain confidence in the service provider and to allow support for her recovery.

Today, Anne remains displaced with her mother, staying in a camp, as it is not safe for them to return home. With support and services, she has resumed some of her daily activities. She now plays with other children and will eventually return to school.

After decades of conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), women and girls continue to suffer disproportionately from the crisis. They also offer one of the best hopes for peace and stability.

In the camp with other displaced persons, Anne now plays a new role. She sensitizes her peers about gender-based violence and reproductive health and rights. When she speaks, others listen.

For this reason and more, local women and girls play an increasingly critical role in humanitarian action and recovery. With their survival strategies, they offer hope, resilience and solutions to long-lasting challenges.

It is time for increased support and funding to place the needs, rights and leadership of women and adolescent girls at the centre of humanitarian efforts.

As we celebrate the anniversary of the first peaceful political transition of power, there is renewed hope, and a genuine window of opportunity, to address and accelerate progress for gender equality.

In a historic first, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has committed, through an addendum to the joint communique signed by the Prime Minister, to implement concrete actions to fight conflict related sexual violence.

The Congolese National Police and National Army have endorsed national plans to combat gender-based violence with zero tolerance for sexual violence, with a commitment to integrate the protection of women and children during military operations.

With this new momentum, there is no time to waste. Ongoing humanitarian situations now affect 12 of 26 provinces in the country, and recent floods and food insecurity place increased strain and hardship on women and families. The humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world’s worst protracted crises.

The number of people who urgently require humanitarian assistance is up from 8.5 million in 2017 to 15.6 million in 2020, including 5 million people displaced from their homes.

Today, many survivors like Anne suffer psychological consequences, such as depression and trauma. Through the multi-stakeholder Call to Action on Protection from GBV in emergencies, which launched a roadmap in DRC in 2019, and the new national strategy to eliminate gender- based violence, concerted efforts are underway with a broad array of partners to strengthen the rule of law and accountability.

This must help thousands of survivors like Anne to rebuild their lives.

Investing in safety, dignity and health

As stated by Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, “Doing more to strengthen our support to women and girls in humanitarian crises is in everyone’s interest.”

UNFPA is working with the Government, the UN system and civil society to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence prevention and response, and mental health and psychosocial support. The majority of our partners are national and local NGOs, including women’s organizations.

In the 2020 humanitarian response plan for the DRC, UNFPA is appealing for US$65 million to strengthen protection and provide life-saving services to three million people, including 700,000 women of childbearing age. This will support the provision of life-saving reproductive health equipment, drugs, contraceptives and supplies.

With this support, women will enjoy safe birth, couples and individuals will have access to free family planning enabling them to make choices, GBV prevention will be strengthened, and GBV survivors will have access to free life-saving psychosocial and medical services.

In addition, youth friendly services, including recreational spaces and peer education for boys and girls, will benefit young people.

By investing in women and young people, prospects for peace and stability will increase in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now is the time to act.

Excerpt: