RFLD analysis · Digital rights · Abuja and Dakar, October 2026
Online harassment, threats and image-based abuse against women are often treated as a private problem, or as a matter for technology companies to fix. At RFLD, we see them as a human rights issue that engages the responsibility of African States. When a woman is driven offline by threats, she loses more than an account. She loses her voice in public debate, her work, and sometimes her safety at home.
In October 2026, RFLD takes this message to two important meetings. On 6 and 7 October, we joined Nigeria’s national consultation on technology-facilitated gender-based violence in Abuja. On 13 October, during the 89th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Dakar, we take part in a regional dialogue on the same issue with civil society and public institutions from Benin, Nigeria and Senegal. Both meetings are organised by Expertise France under the Team Europe Initiative on Women’s Leadership in the Public ICT Sector (WLICT), funded by the European Union.
What technology-facilitated violence looks like
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is any act of violence against women that is committed, assisted or made worse by digital tools. It takes many forms, and they often combine. Our glossary explains each of them.
- Harassment and threats, including coordinated attacks, rape threats and death threats.
- Image-based abuse: sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent, sextortion and fake sexual images.
- Stalking and surveillance: tracking a woman’s location, hacking her accounts or installing spyware on her phone.
- Doxxing: publishing a woman’s address, phone number or family details to expose her to danger.
- Disinformation and smear campaigns that use sexist stereotypes to discredit women leaders, journalists and defenders.
Violence that pushes women out of public life
Online violence follows women from their phones into their homes and workplaces. Women in public life and women human rights defenders are often the first targets. Our research shows that abuse against women politicians grows with their influence, and that for women journalists online abuse can turn into physical attacks. Many women stop speaking online. Some leave public life altogether.
When this happens, the harm goes beyond the individual. Public debate loses women’s voices, and the right of women to take part in political and public life, protected by Article 9 of the Maputo Protocol, becomes harder to exercise. The costs for women’s health and income are real, even when there is no physical injury.
A digital space built without women
In West and Central Africa, women are less likely than men to own a smartphone or to use the internet, and the public spaces of social media are dominated by men. Our analysis Who is online? shows how this gap shapes who speaks and who is attacked. When women do go online, especially to speak about politics, rights or their own experiences, they enter spaces where abuse is common and rarely punished.
Survivors then face barriers to justice: police stations that do not take online complaints seriously, little capacity to preserve digital evidence, and fear of stigma, above all in cases of image-based abuse. The result is a cycle of silence. Abuse goes unreported, data stays thin, and governments can claim the problem is small. Our review of police figures in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire shows complaints rising while the data needed to respond remains incomplete.
What our 2026 research shows
RFLD’s 2026 report on human rights defenders in West Africa and the Sahel, available on our publications page, confirms that the digital space has become a place of risk. Sexualised abuse online is one of the patterns of “double targeting” that women defenders face, attacked both for their work and for being women. Cyberbullying and account hacking are reported across the region, and the use of spyware against journalists and defenders has been documented in Nigeria, Togo, Benin and Mali.
The report also shows a worrying paradox. Many countries respond to online harms through broad cybercrime and “false news” laws. These laws often contain vague provisions that give authorities wide discretion, and in practice they are frequently used to prosecute journalists and activists for what they publish. A woman defender can be harassed online, then prosecuted for speaking out about it. Our analysis of laws on intimate image abuse shows how few States in the region protect women against one of the most damaging forms of online violence.
Why it is a human rights question
African States have committed to protect women’s dignity (Article 3) and their right to life, integrity and security of the person (Article 4) under the Maputo Protocol. These obligations apply online as much as offline. A State meets them when it prevents attacks, investigates them, punishes those responsible and supports survivors. Its laws must also protect women without being used to silence them.
The African Commission has made this explicit. In 2022, its Resolution 522 on the protection of women against digital violence in Africa called on States to act, including through laws and policies that address digital violence. In 2024, Resolution 591 called for a continental study on digital violence against women. These standards give women’s organisations a clear basis to hold governments to account.
Seen this way, technology-facilitated violence is a test of State accountability. It calls for clear laws that name this violence, trained police and justice officials, services that survivors can reach outside the capitals, and data that shows whether responses work.
What States can do now
- Adopt or reform laws that clearly define online violence against women, including image-based abuse, without vague offences that can be used against journalists and defenders.
- Train police, prosecutors and judges to receive complaints, preserve digital evidence and protect survivors’ privacy.
- Create confidential reporting channels and support services that work in local languages and outside capital cities.
- Work with data protection authorities and platforms to take down abusive content quickly.
- Collect and publish data, broken down by sex, on complaints, investigations and outcomes.
- Report on their action to the African Commission, in line with Resolutions 522 and 591.
Our full set of recommendations for governments sets out these steps in more detail.
What RFLD brings to the discussion
In Abuja and in Dakar, RFLD shares what its members see on the ground and the resources built with them, starting with the African Digital Safety Compendium. Our report recommends expanding digital security training in English and French, so that grassroots defenders outside the main languages of the internet are not left behind. It also calls for confidential reporting channels for defenders under threat.
For survivors, our Survivor Support Toolkit offers a private safety plan, an incident diary to keep evidence, and practical steps to check whether a phone is being watched. We hope the Dakar dialogue ends with concrete commitments from each participating institution and organisation for the next twelve months.
Resource centre
RFLD 2026 report: online violence in West and Central Africa
Law and accountability
Action and support
International references
About RFLD
The Women Leaders Network for Development (RFLD) is a pan-African Afrofeminist network of 1,143 member organisations in more than 35 African countries, working for the rights of women and girls. Media and partnership enquiries: admin@rflgd.org.
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