Clear words help survivors name what happened to them and help lawmakers draft better laws. RFLD’s report Online violence against women in West and Central Africa 2026 uses a set of terms that are now common in international debate but not always familiar in national practice. This glossary explains them.
The core definition
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). The report adopts the UNFPA definition: “an act of violence perpetrated by one or more individuals that is committed, assisted, aggravated and amplified in part or fully by the use of information and communication technologies or digital media against a person on the basis of gender.” The report uses “online violence against women” as a shorter equivalent.
The key idea is the continuum. Violence that starts online can move offline, and violence offline can be extended through technology. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women placed technology-mediated violence on this continuum in its General Recommendation No. 35 in 2017.
Common forms
- Cyber-harassment: repeated abusive messages or posts aimed at a woman.
- Threats: messages threatening violence, including rape or death, sent through social media or messaging apps.
- Sharing intimate images without consent: publishing or circulating private sexual images or videos of a person without her agreement. Threatening to share them is a separate harm.
- Sextortion: using intimate images, real or fabricated, to demand money or sexual acts.
- Doxing: publishing a person’s private information, such as an address or phone number, to expose her to harm.
- Cyberstalking: following or contacting a person online in a way that causes fear.
- Impersonation: creating fake accounts in a woman’s name to damage her reputation or deceive others.
- Gendered disinformation: false or misleading content that attacks women, often in politics, through attacks on their appearance or marital status.
- Sexualised deepfakes: images or videos generated or altered with artificial intelligence to depict a person in sexual content. UN Women reports, citing Sensity.ai, that 90 to 95% of deepfakes online are sexual images of women.
Legal and policy terms
Data protection authority. An independent national body that enforces data protection law. In several francophone countries, these authorities can order the removal of personal data, including images, processed without consent.
Hash-matching. A technique that turns an image into a digital fingerprint, called a hash, on the user’s own device. Participating platforms then block uploads that match the hash, without ever seeing the original image.
Malabo Convention. The African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection, adopted in 2014 and in force since 8 June 2023.
Budapest Convention. The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime of 2001, which gives parties access to cooperation channels for obtaining digital evidence across borders.
Resolution 522. The African Commission’s 2022 resolution on the protection of women against digital violence in Africa.
AU-CEVAWG. The African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls, adopted in February 2025.
Response terms
Survivor-centred approach. A response in which the survivor’s safety and wishes guide every step, including whether to go to the police.
Evidence preservation. Capturing screenshots that show the content, the account that posted it, the date and the link, and storing them securely before content is deleted.
Content moderation. The review and removal of content by platforms, by human moderators or automated systems.
Shadow report. A report submitted by civil society to a treaty body such as the African Commission, alongside or in response to the state’s own periodic report. Documented cases of online violence, gathered with the informed consent of survivors, can strengthen these reports.
Specialised unit. A police or investigation unit dedicated to cybercrime, such as Benin’s national digital investigation centre (CNIN), set up in November 2023.
Why vocabulary matters
Several national laws in the region use broad terms such as “harassment by electronic communication” without any reference to gender. When a law does not name a harm, police and prosecutors may not recognise it. The report therefore recommends that states criminalise, in clear and proportionate terms, the sharing of intimate images without consent, the threat to share them, sextortion, cyberstalking and sexualised deepfakes.
For a fuller picture of how the report defines and measures each form of violence, read the report summary.
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.
