Africa stands at a critical crossroads, embracing the digital age with unprecedented enthusiasm while simultaneously confronting the enduring legacies of its colonial past. This rapid digital transformation, though seemingly offering boundless opportunities, is unfolding along paths that eerily echo historical patterns of exploitation and inequality. As African feminists, workers, and activists in social justice movements, we are organizing at this historic juncture where the digital economy is rapidly reshaping our societies, economies, and everyday lives. This transformation, however, has unfolded along paths that reproduce and exacerbate colonial patterns of extraction, exploitation, and inequality.
Across our continent, digital labor platforms are expanding into vital economic sectors, including transportation, domestic and care work, and content moderation. Yet these new forms of labor are marked by old injustices—precarity, disposability, and violence—particularly for women, gender-expansive persons, migrants, people living with disabilities, and those already marginalized by intersecting systems of oppression. We unequivocally reject the narrative that the digital economy is inherently inclusive or empowering. In reality, it has entrenched corporate dominance over data, technology, and livelihoods while eroding rights, protections, and democratic spaces. Under the guise of flexibility and innovation, the neoliberal capitalist platform model continues to commodify our labor, bodies, and communities, trapping us in algorithmic systems that surveil, exploit, exclude, and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few.
This article, therefore, will critically examine the platform economy’s impact on decent and dignified work in Francophone Africa through an Afrofeminist lens. We’ll expose how this new economic frontier perpetuates existing patriarchal, racialized, and colonial oppressions, particularly within the crucial care sector. Our aim is to articulate a robust Afrofeminist vision for digital justice, prioritizing human well-being over corporate profit, and proposing pathways for resistance and transformative change across our continent.
RFLD, as the Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement, operates as a formidable regional force, deeply rooted in the realities of West and Central Africa. With its headquarters in Benin and offices in Ghana, Togo, and The Gambia, RFLD collaborates with an extensive network of over forty women-led organizations across Francophone Africa. This broad reach allows it to amplify localized struggles within a regional framework, ensuring that the unique challenges faced by women in countries like Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Cameroon concerning the platform economy are articulated and addressed collectively. RFLD’s work extends beyond advocacy to include crucial capacity strengthening, research, and thought leadership, equipping grassroots organizations and activists with the tools and knowledge needed to engage effectively in policy dialogues and challenge prevailing economic injustices. This approach facilitates a bottom-up movement, translating the lived experiences of precarious platform workers into robust policy demands and strategies for systemic change.
The call for decent and dignified work in the platform economy is not merely an ethical appeal; it is firmly grounded in a comprehensive tapestry of international and regional human rights instruments. The Maputo Protocol (Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa) stands as a groundbreaking regional framework, explicitly guaranteeing women’s socio-economic rights, rights to dignity, and protection from all forms of violence – provisions directly applicable to the exploitative conditions prevalent in the platform economy. Globally, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with its broad mandates on eliminating discrimination in employment and economic life, provides a powerful global standard. Furthermore, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace, and Security, while often associated with conflict, underscores the importance of women’s participation in decision-making and protection from violence in all contexts, including emerging economic spheres. Alongside these, various ILO conventions concerning decent work and informal labor, and regional labor charters, provide further legal leverage to demand fair wages, social protection, and safe working conditions for platform workers, ensuring that digital “innovation” does not come at the cost of fundamental human rights.
The fanfare around Africa’s “digital leap” often obscures a more insidious reality. While connectivity and digital services proliferate, the underlying mechanics of the platform economy often serve as a conduit for renewed forms of extraction, reminiscent of the colonial past. It’s not just about physical resources anymore; it’s about the systematic extraction of data, digital labor, and market control by multinational tech corporations, predominantly from the Global North.
The neoliberal capitalist platform model champions terms like “flexibility” and “innovation,” but these are often euphemisms for a deliberate strategy to deregulate labor, erode hard-won worker rights, and create a vast pool of precarious labor. Companies externalize costs and risks onto individual workers, reclassifying them as “independent contractors” to circumvent minimum wage laws, social security contributions, and other employee benefits. This effectively informalizes formal work, pushing millions into a vulnerable limbo. Furthermore, platforms engage in the wholesale commodification of life itself. It’s not just our labor; it’s our personal data, our social interactions, and even our most intimate acts of care that are increasingly brokered and monetized through digital intermediaries.
At the heart of this new extractive regime lies algorithmic governance, surveillance capitalism, and control. Algorithms, not human managers, dictate work assignments, performance ratings, and even the termination of contracts. This algorithmic management is notoriously opaque, leaving workers with little understanding of how decisions are made, no avenue for redress, and no voice in shaping their working conditions. This opaqueness feeds into a pervasive data colonialism, where vast amounts of personal and work-related data generated by African users and workers are collected, processed, and monetized by global tech giants. This data, a new form of “raw material,” enriches corporations far removed from the African contexts where it’s generated, perpetuating a wealth transfer from the Global South to the North. The constant surveillance inherent in platform design—tracking movements, performance metrics, and communications—serves not only for purported efficiency but, more critically, as a disciplinary tool. It maximizes control over the workforce, limits worker autonomy, and actively undermines attempts at collective organizing.
To understand the profound impact of the platform economy on women in Francophone Africa, we must first grasp the historical and ongoing realities of the care economy. As socialist feminist thinkers like Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, and Isabel Lerguia and John Dumoulin, eloquently articulated in the 1970s, unpaid female labor in the home is the “hidden source of surplus labour” and the “invisible economic base” of capitalist society. They delineated its crucial functions: biological reproduction, education and caring for children, the elderly and the ill, and the daily reproduction of labor power. This invisible, wage-less housework was historically stamped as trivial, laying the roots for women’s secondary place in the paid labor force, as Terry Fee hypothesized.
This overwhelming, uncompensated burden profoundly impacts women’s health and well-being. As the WHO Regional Office for Africa (2021) highlights, “gender inequity, poverty among women, sexual and gender-based violence… are major impediments to the amelioration of women’s health in the African Region.” African women are more susceptible to communicable diseases, maternal conditions, and nutritional deficiencies like anemia. Taken together, these facts underscore that the current structure of care supply in Africa is unsustainable. Yet, tragically, the care economy remains far from a policy priority across the continent.
When the platformization of care enters this context, it doesn’t alleviate the burden; it often intensifies exploitation. Platforms, while ostensibly creating “opportunities,” frequently formalize the informal sector in a way that strips away social protections and reinforces the historical undervaluation of this deeply feminized labor. The “invisible functions” of biological reproduction and daily labor reproduction, as described by early feminists, become digitally brokered but remain fundamentally undervalued and unprotected.
Consider domestic work and cleaning apps now prevalent in Francophone cities like Dakar and Abidjan. These platforms connect clients with cleaners, but often offer precarious terms: low pay (below living wages), no benefits (health insurance, pension), no sick leave, and significant commissions taken by the platform. Workers are vulnerable to arbitrary client ratings, algorithmic punishment, and even abuse, with little formal recourse. Similarly, app-based childcare or elder care services introduce a digital layer to highly intimate and demanding work, often without ensuring safety, fair compensation, or a formal employer-employee relationship that protects workers. For migrant women engaged in platform-based care work, vulnerabilities are compounded by xenophobia, precarious legal status, language barriers, and a lack of traditional labor protections, making them especially susceptible to extreme exploitation. This is further complicated for women with disabilities, who face additional accessibility challenges and algorithmic biases that can exclude them or funnel them into even more precarious platform roles.
Beyond care work, the platform economy’s gendered impacts are evident in other sectors. In ride-hailing, women drivers in cities like Cotonou face heightened risks of gender-based violence, sexual harassment from passengers or male colleagues, and discrimination. They often struggle with access to vehicle ownership or financing, and are subject to gender bias in customer ratings. The outsourced content moderation hubs in places like Casablanca (Morocco) represent a new form of racialized and gendered exploitation. Young African workers, many of them women, are exposed daily to disturbing and violent online content, suffering severe psychological trauma for low pay and precarious contracts, with woefully inadequate mental health support. In the broader landscape of online gig work and microtasks, African women are pushed into a global race to the bottom, often competing for pennies while grappling with connectivity issues, digital literacy gaps, and algorithms that can harbor gendered and racial biases.
We must emphatically reject the Silicon Valley-driven narratives that simplistically frame platform work as inherently empowering for women in Africa. Genuine empowerment demands a fundamental systemic overhaul, not merely access to a smartphone that mediates new forms of exploitation. Our vision for digital justice is rooted in core Afrofeminist principles.
Firstly, Intersectionality, as articulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw, is paramount. Solutions must address the simultaneous and overlapping oppressions—gender, race, class, disability, migration status, and colonial legacies—that converge to create unique vulnerabilities for African women in the platform economy. No single axis of oppression can be isolated; they are inextricably linked.
Secondly, our approach is deeply Decolonial. We advocate for dismantling the colonial structures embedded within the digital economy itself. This means moving beyond critique to actively demanding digital sovereignty: challenging the North-South power imbalances in data ownership, platform design, and technological infrastructure. It calls for a recognition of, and reparations for, digital exploitation that continues to extract wealth and control from the continent.
Thirdly, we connect platform labor exploitation, particularly in feminized care work, to the broader concept of Reproductive Justice. As theorized by Loretta Ross and others, economic insecurity fostered by precarious platform work directly impacts women’s autonomy over their bodies and lives, including their reproductive choices and their ability to raise children with dignity. A dignified wage, comprehensive social protections, and genuine agency are fundamental components of reproductive justice in the digital age.
Fourthly, we champion Solidarity and Collective Liberation. Individual solutions are insufficient. The path forward demands collective action, fostering cross-border solidarity among platform workers, labor movements, feminist organizations, disability rights advocates, and migrant rights groups across Francophone Africa and globally. Our liberation is intertwined.
Finally, our vision is deeply informed by Ubuntu and other relevant African philosophies. “I am because we are” underscores the interconnectedness and shared humanity that should underpin our societies. This principle asserts that no one can truly prosper while others are exploited. Therefore, we envision a digital economy built on reciprocity, community well-being, and mutual respect, moving decisively away from the hyper-individualism and extractive logic of neoliberal capitalism.
From this Afrofeminist standpoint, “decent and dignified work” in the platform economy means far more than just a minimal wage. It encompasses:
- Fair Living Wages: Wages that are not merely above minimum thresholds but are genuinely sufficient to cover the cost of living in diverse African contexts, enabling workers to support themselves and their dependents with dignity.
- Comprehensive Social Protection: Mandatory access to social security, healthcare, unemployment benefits, paid sick leave, and robust pension schemes for all platform workers, recognizing them as employees with full rights.
- Safety, Security, and Freedom from All Forms of Violence: Guaranteeing physical and psychological safety, freedom from gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and discrimination (both online and offline). This requires accessible and effective reporting and redress mechanisms.
- Voice, Representation, and Collective Bargaining: Upholding the fundamental right for platform workers to organize, form unions, and engage in meaningful collective bargaining. Workers must have a democratic voice and agency in shaping the terms and conditions of their labor.
- Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability: Demanding clarity on how algorithms operate, make decisions, and impact workers. This includes the establishment of independent oversight bodies and robust mechanisms for workers to challenge discriminatory, unfair, or arbitrary algorithmic decisions.
- Data Rights and Fair Data Governance: Asserting that workers have ownership and control over their personal and work data. This data should not be used to further exploit, surveil, or discriminate against them. We advocate for strong national and regional data protection laws that prioritize human rights over corporate profit.
- Respect for Autonomy and Human Dignity: Moving beyond models of work that are purely extractive and dehumanizing. Platforms should be designed to foster genuine worker agency, facilitate skill development, and promote the overall well-being and dignity of every individual.
The realization of an Afrofeminist vision for decent and dignified work in the platform economy requires multifaceted and concerted action.
Policy and Legislative Advocacy is paramount. We must relentlessly push for worker reclassification in legal frameworks, ensuring platform workers are recognized as employees with full labor rights and protections. This requires adapting and modernizing existing labor laws to address the unique challenges of the platform economy, preventing corporations from exploiting regulatory loopholes. Crucially, we demand algorithmic regulation—specific laws mandating transparency, fairness, auditability, and worker appeal mechanisms for algorithmic management systems. Alongside this, robust data governance is essential, advocating for strong national and regional data protection laws that prioritize individuals’ data rights, particularly for workers, against corporate exploitation. Finally, we champion universal social protection floors, campaigning for the expansion of comprehensive social security schemes that are inclusive of all workers, regardless of their employment status or sector.
Worker Organizing and Collective Power form the bedrock of resistance. We must actively support and facilitate the formation and strengthening of platform worker unions, associations, and cooperatives across Francophone Africa. From ride-hailing drivers in Cotonou to domestic workers in Lomé, fostering grassroots movements is critical. This work extends to building transnational solidarity, forging strong alliances and facilitating knowledge exchange between platform workers, labor movements, feminist organizations, and digital rights advocates across the continent and globally. We also recognize the necessity of leveraging digital tools for organizing itself, utilizing technology to empower workers, share information, and mobilize collectively, thereby countering algorithmic control with collective digital power.
Furthermore, fostering Alternative Digital Models offers concrete pathways to transformation. We must actively support and invest in platform cooperatives, which are worker-owned and governed digital platforms. These models prioritize worker welfare, democratic control, and community benefit over purely extractive profit maximization. Beyond cooperatives, we advocate for community-led digital initiatives – localized, context-specific solutions that are democratically controlled and serve social good rather than merely generating profit.
Finally, promoting Feminist Technology Design and Ethical AI is crucial. We demand the design and deployment of platforms and AI systems that are inherently ethical, inclusive, and prioritize human dignity, autonomy, and well-being over solely profit-driven metrics. This includes advocating for Decolonial AI, pushing for research and development of artificial intelligence that is free from colonial biases, actively promotes equity, and integrates African knowledge systems and values. Continuous public awareness and education efforts are also vital to inform policymakers, workers, and the general public about the challenges and the necessity of an Afrofeminist vision for the platform economy.
The digital economy presents a profound challenge and an immense opportunity for Africa. However, if left unchecked, the neoliberal capitalist platform model will only deepen the colonial patterns of exploitation and inequality that have long plagued our continent. From the invisible labor of care work, historically undervalued and now precariously platformized, to the surveillance and control inherent in algorithmic management, African women and marginalized communities bear the brunt of this new wave of extraction.
As the RFLD, we reiterate that true digital inclusion and empowerment in Francophone Africa necessitate a fundamental paradigm shift. We must move decisively away from extractive, colonial, and patriarchal models towards an Afrofeminist vision of decent, dignified, and liberating work. This requires a collective, intersectional, and decolonial approach that prioritizes human well-being, social protection, and democratic control over data and technology. The time to act is now. Through sustained organizing, determined advocacy, and unwavering solidarity, we will reclaim our digital future. The future of work on our continent must be one where our labor, our data, and our lives are valued, protected, and dignified – a future we are actively building, brick by digital brick, rooted in our Afrofeminist principles of liberation.
