Digital safety
across Africa.
The African Digital Safety Compendium is RFLD's continental reference on technology-facilitated gender-based violence and digital rights. Covering all 55 African Union member states, drawing on RFLD's continental focal-points monitoring network, anchored in the Maputo Protocol and ACHPR Resolution 522.
A continental monitoring network.
The Compendium combines three sources of evidence: RFLD's continental focal-points network reporting on a quarterly cadence from each AU member state, an incident base aggregating verified TFGBV cases reported through volunteer networks, and a curated resource library of peer-reviewed studies, official treaty texts, civil-society reports, and journalistic documentation. The methodology is honest about its limits — and that is what makes it useful.
RFLD operates a continental focal-points network — one focal point per AU member state, 55 in total — reporting on a quarterly cadence on the state of digital rights, TFGBV incidents, legal-framework developments, and emerging threats in their respective country contexts. Focal points are members of RFLD's network of 670 organisations across the continent, with priority given to women-led grassroots organisations, journalists, and digital-rights advocates already operating on the ground.
The RFLD incident base aggregates verified TFGBV cases reported through focal points and through volunteer-supported community channels. Cases are de-identified, geo-tagged, and categorised by typology (cyberstalking, online harassment, image-based abuse, doxxing, sextortion, deepfake abuse, coordinated harassment campaigns). Aggregated prevalence figures published in this Compendium derive from this incident base, supplemented where available by external sources (UN Women, ITU, EIU, Paradigm Initiative, CIPESA, ACHPR rapporteur reports).
The Compendium does not claim live data. Country profiles reflect the most recent quarterly reporting cycle; legal-framework analysis reflects continuing tracking by RFLD's continental policy team. Where information is incomplete, contested, or subject to verification, that is flagged. Where countries are operating under suspended constitutions or transitional regimes, the political context is stated explicitly.
The continental scale of harm.
Four headline statistics from RFLD's continental monitoring across 55 AU member states. Each figure represents an aggregate across the network's most recent quarterly reporting cycles. Methodology and underlying incident-base detail are available to legitimate research partners on request.
Three pillars.
The Compendium is organised around three pillars matching the principal use cases its readers — civil-society organisations, parliamentarians, journalists, donors, researchers, and survivors' rights advocates — bring to it.
Legal frameworks
Analysis of continental and national instruments including the Maputo Protocol, the Malabo Convention on Cybersecurity, the ACHPR Resolutions on digital violence (522, 591) and data access (620), and national cybercrime and data-protection legislation across 55 AU member states.
8+ continental instruments trackedResource library
Over 150 curated resources — peer-reviewed academic studies, UN agency reports, AU and ACHPR official documents, civil-society advocacy reports, technical analyses, legal commentaries, and journalistic investigations — organised by category and searchable.
150+ resources · 8 thematic categoriesContinental monitoring
RFLD's focal-points network across all 55 AU member states reporting on a quarterly cadence — TFGBV incidents, legal-framework developments, emerging threats, and country-level risk assessments. Aggregated, de-identified, and methodology-anchored.
55 focal points · quarterly cadenceWhat we are tracking.
Eight principal forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence documented across the RFLD focal-points network. The list reflects the categories used by ACHPR Resolution 522 and Resolution 591, with refinements developed in coordination with continental civil-society partners.
Cyberstalking
Repeated unwanted monitoring, contact, or surveillance through digital platforms — often by intimate partners, ex-partners, or coordinated networks targeting women in public life.
Online harassment
Abusive messaging, threats, sustained pile-on attacks, and coordinated mob behaviour through social media targeting women journalists, politicians, and human-rights defenders.
Image-based abuse
Non-consensual creation, sharing, or distribution of intimate images (NCII) — a category that increasingly includes synthetic and AI-generated imagery.
Doxxing
Publishing private personal information — home addresses, phone numbers, family-member identities — to enable offline harassment and physical-safety threats.
Sextortion
Coercion through threatened release of intimate images or sensitive information — a rapidly growing category, frequently cross-border, with documented criminal-network involvement.
Deepfake abuse
AI-generated synthetic intimate imagery, voice cloning, and impersonation — an emerging category whose pace has outstripped most national legal frameworks.
Coordinated campaigns
Organised pile-on attacks, particularly during election cycles, targeting women candidates, women journalists covering political stories, and women in public discourse.
Surveillance & tracking
Stalkerware, biometric data abuse, and state or commercial surveillance with disproportionate impact on women human-rights defenders.
The continental view.
Each marker represents one AU member state, colour-coded by the current risk classification from the most recent quarterly reporting cycle. Click any marker to access that country's profile, including population, internet penetration, recorded TFGBV prevalence, and the focal-point's current assessment.
Country profiles.
Each AU member state has a profile drawing on its focal-point's most recent quarterly reporting. Profiles include the focal point's executive summary, an analysis of the current state of digital violence in-country, the legal and policy framework, focal-point operational notes, and recommendations for civil society, parliamentarians, and donors.
Search the directory
The legal architecture.
Eight continental and international instruments anchor the work documented in this Compendium. Three ACHPR resolutions (522, 591, 620) form the primary continental framework on digital violence, the digital-violence study, and access to data as a human-rights tool. The Maputo Protocol provides the foundation; Malabo Convention provides the cybersecurity infrastructure framework.
Resolution 522 — Protection of Women Against Digital Violence in Africa
The principal continental framework calling on AU member states to update legislation to protect women in digital spaces. Addresses cyber-harassment, hate speech, image-based abuse, and platform accountability.
achpr.au.int · Resolution 522Resolution 591 — Study on Digital Violence Against Women's Rights
Mandates a continental study by the ACHPR's mechanisms on digital violence against women's rights. The study informs continuing harmonisation of national legislation across the AU.
achpr.au.int · Resolution 591Resolution 620 — Access to Data as a Human Rights and Sustainable Development Tool
Mandates the ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information to develop standards on data collection, storage, and processing — including transparency, data justice, and algorithmic accountability.
achpr.au.int · Resolution 620Maputo Protocol
Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. The foundational continental human-rights instrument anchoring all work on women's rights — including digital rights and freedom from technology-facilitated violence.
RFLD Maputo Protocol HubMalabo Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection
The principal continental cybersecurity and data-protection framework. Ratification status across AU member states is a continuing focus of the Compendium's legal-framework tracking.
au.int · Malabo ConventionChild Online Safety and Empowerment Policy for Africa
Adopted by the AU in May 2024. Establishes the continental framework for protecting children — including girls — from online exploitation, harassment, and abuse.
au.int · Child Online Safety PolicyCEDAW — Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
The principal international human-rights instrument on women's rights. CEDAW General Recommendation 35 (2017) explicitly addresses gender-based violence including in digital contexts.
ohchr.org · CEDAWACDEG — African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance
Article 8 establishes the continental framework on women's political participation. Critical to digital safety analysis given the documented use of TFGBV as a tactic to suppress women's political candidacy and journalism.
au.int · ACDEGACHPR partnership.
RFLD operates with ACHPR Observer status (Resolution 602) in coordination with the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and Focal Point on Reprisals in Africa.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights granted RFLD Observer Status under Resolution 602 in recognition of its continental work on women's rights, civic-space protection, and the protection of human-rights defenders. The Compendium's continental monitoring of TFGBV operates in direct coordination with the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and Focal Point on Reprisals in Africa — both of whose mandates are increasingly engaged with digital threats facing women defenders.
This institutional anchoring is what differentiates the Compendium from other digital-rights resources: the data, analysis, and recommendations it publishes feed directly into the continental human-rights system. Country focal-point reports are one of the inputs that contribute to ACHPR communications, urgent appeals, and resolutions concerning women defenders facing technology-facilitated harassment, surveillance, and reprisals across the continent.
The fourth pillar.
The Compendium is the digital-safety pillar of RFLD's continental data infrastructure — the DƆNÙESÈ Data Center. It sits alongside the Maputo Protocol Hub (continental human-rights anchor), the West Africa Legislative Platform (comparative legal analysis), and the Women in Politics Tracker (representation data). Together they form the most comprehensive feminist data infrastructure in West and Central Africa.
Maputo Protocol Hub
Continental anchor on the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. Ratification tracker, indigenous-language translations, 70-question quiz, three published reference documents.
West Africa Legislative Platform
Comparative legal analysis across 15 West African countries · 9 legal domains each — gender-based violence, SRHR, sexual harassment, women with disabilities, land rights, political participation, FGM, harmonisation, institutional mechanisms.
Women in Politics Tracker
Continental representation tracker — executive, legislature, judiciary, local government — across 15 West African countries with continental ranking, treaty commitments matrix, and 2024-2025 legislative developments.
African Digital Safety Compendium
Continental TFGBV reference covering 55 AU member states. RFLD focal-points monitoring network. 150+ curated resources. ACHPR Resolution 522, 591, 620 anchored.
Knowledge library.
The most comprehensive curated library of digital-safety, TFGBV, and continental gender-equality resources for Africa. Includes peer-reviewed academic studies, UN agency reports, ACHPR and AU official documents, civil-society advocacy reports, technical analyses, and journalistic investigations. Each resource is categorised, attributed, and direct-linked.
Get in touch.
For research collaboration, focal-point reporting, country-profile updates, programme partnership, journalist enquiries, or to report a TFGBV incident through the volunteer channels — please reach the appropriate channel below. The Compendium is maintained as a living reference; corrections and updates are welcomed.