Online violence against women is often minimised, in families and in police stations. RFLD’s report Online violence against women in West and Central Africa 2026 gathers the evidence needed to answer the most common objections. Here are four myths, and what the data shows.
Myth 1: “It is only words on a screen”
Online abuse frequently moves offline. A UN Women survey published in December 2025, Tipping point, gathered responses from women human rights defenders and journalists in 119 countries. Seven in ten had experienced online violence, and 41% had suffered offline attacks linked to the online abuse.
Among women journalists, offline harm linked to online abuse rose from 20% in 2020 to 42% in 2025. In Africa, the 2021 study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the African Parliamentary Union found that 42% of women parliamentarians interviewed had received threats of death, rape, beating or abduction, mostly through social media.
The report’s survivor-centred response begins with physical safety for this reason: online threats may precede offline violence.
Myth 2: “Women can simply log off”
Logging off has a price. In the 2019 Internet Sans Frontières survey across 18 countries of West and Central Africa, 28.5% of women changed how they used social media after experiencing abuse. A UNESCO report from May 2026 found that 45% of women journalists surveyed self-censor on social media.
Withdrawal may protect a survivor in the short term. Over time it widens the gap in digital participation. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 230 million women already do not use mobile internet, according to the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026. Pushing women offline deepens an inequality that already exists.
There is an economic cost too. One study in the 2026 PLOS ONE scoping review, from Malawi, found that 76.1% of women affected by online violence reported a loss of income.
Myth 3: “The law already covers it”
In most of the region, it does not, at least explicitly. Among the countries reviewed, only three states explicitly criminalise sharing intimate images without consent. All are English-speaking, and Ghana’s Cybersecurity Act 2020 is the earliest model. Francophone frameworks rely on general privacy or harassment offences.
Some laws even work against women. Broad cybercrime offences such as “false news” or defamation can be used against women journalists and human rights defenders. The African Commission’s Resolution 522 calls on states to repeal overly broad surveillance laws that increase women journalists’ vulnerability.
The protection gap is global as well. UN Women, using World Bank data, reports that 44% of the world’s women and girls lack legal protection from digital abuse. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 25% of countries offer legal protection, according to the same UN Women materials.
Where a specific law exists, it can make a difference. Ghana’s Cybersecurity Act punishes the threat to share intimate images, even without any demand attached, with one to three years in prison.
Myth 4: “Platforms take care of it”
Platform responses are uneven, and very little country-level data is published for the region. In Nigeria, only 24% of users find X responsive to complaints about online harm, according to Gatefield research. Automated content moderation covers fewer than 20 of Africa’s roughly 2,000 languages.
In 2025, AI-generated sexual images of well-known Nigerian women artists circulated without visible platform action. The report recommends that companies label and remove sexualised deepfakes promptly and publish country-level data on reports and on how quickly they are handled.
Replacing myths with action
Each myth has a cost. When abuse is dismissed as words, women do not get safety planning. When logging off is presented as the solution, women lose income and voice. When laws are assumed to be adequate, reform stalls. When platforms are trusted by default, no one asks for data.
The report sets out a response for each actor. RFLD’s summary page lists the recommendations, and RFLD’s women’s rights laws pages give the legal context in each country.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Online violence against women in West and Central Africa 2026, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
