Unfiltered Realities: 9 Myths You Should Know About Online Gender-Based Violence in Africa
Author: Angela Efia Dzidzornu
Across parts of Africa today, logging into the internet has become just as routine as taking your morning cup of tea, easily woven into the very fabric of daily life. From WhatsApp groups to X Trends, our digital spaces are alive and brimming with conversations, information and activism. But beneath the hashtags and liberalism of digital technology platforms lies the silent, pervasive issue of Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV).
Technology is a tool meant to empower and emancipate, opening new doors and giving women a platform to speak, build careers and contribute to public discourse. However, this same technology has become a looming weapon for the perpetration of violence and exclusion. Our digital spaces today mirror society’s inequalities, with women often experiencing a host of challenges forcing them to self-censor or withdraw from participating in digital forums.
Women leaders like Kenya’s Hon. Esther Passaris, Uganda’s Hon. Kemigisha Sharon and others who have publicly spoken about cyberbullying that almost drove them off social media, to the everyday African woman who is trolled and doxxed for expressing feminist views, the message is clear; the internet is not always a safe space, especially for women. As such, this blog unpacks nine harmful myths around OGBV, why they persist and why dismantling them is crucial if we are to build safe and inclusive digital spaces across Africa.
Myth #1: Online violence isn’t real violence
Online Gender-Based Violence is a serious and tangible form of violence with profound psychological, emotional, and physical consequences, robbing many African women of their careers, confidence and mental health. According to a 2017 Amnesty International survey, 55% of women who were abused online said it caused them to feel anxious or have panic attacks. According to the same study, 61% of these women reported difficulty sleeping following the maltreatment.
In a case study highlighted in our ‘Amplified Abuse’ Report from 2021, presidential aspirant Diane Rwigara’s campaign during Rwanda’s 2017 general elections was derailed when doctored nude images of her were shared online. Rwigara was trolled, abused online, and her campaign was ultimately discredited. Dismissing online gender-based violence as “not real” diminishes the victims’ experiences and maintains an impunity culture. Recognising the severity of this phenomenon is important for the development of effective interventions and support systems.
Myth #2: If you report and block, the platform will take care of it
The reality is that they rarely do. Pollicy’s ‘Alternative Internet, Alternate Realities’ research across five African countries found that Facebook (now Meta) remains the biggest enabler of OGBV. Women reported submitting harassment complaints, only to receive automated responses. Also, harmful content stayed up for days, sometimes permanently, leaving victims feeling unheard and unsafe.
One Content creator in an in-depth interview during our Dada Disinfo research stakeholder consultation in 2024 told us she reported death threats several times from speaking on Kenya’s femicide protests, before finally deleting her account. Sometimes abusers simply create another account and continue the abuse. Blocking and reporting are not shields. They are band-aids; real accountability requires stronger policies, responsive systems, and moderators who understand the nuances of gendered abuse, especially in African languages and contexts.
MYTH #3: It’s not a big deal if no one gets hurt
Let’s be honest. You haven’t witnessed the psychological damage caused by constant online abuse if you believe that only physical violence matters. On the contrary, most threats, doxxing, and cyberbullying have translated from digital spaces into the real world, causing women to scale back on their media work, give up political careers, and close successful businesses.
Uganda’s Woman Councillor for Wandegeya, Sharon Kemigisha, was abducted in 2024 after previously receiving numerous threats online and offline. She was found unconscious in an unknown location after nine days. Again, in Nigeria, award-winning Journalist Kiki Mordi faced waves of coordinated harassment after her landmark investigative reporting, ‘Sex for Grades’ was filmed in collaboration with BBC Africa Eye in 2019. A press statement by the International Centre for Journalists indicated that she experienced “escalating online violence laced with gendered disinformation designed to discredit and silence her”. Some cases may not necessarily cause visible bruising. However, the psychological scars are always immense. Online violence can turn into real-world danger for any woman.
MYTH #4: Strong women don’t get bullied online
Strength doesn’t protect anyone from digital violence. The stronger, louder, and more visible a woman is, the more she is targeted.
According to our Femtech report, ”A Dark Place for Women Journalists and Women Human Rights Defenders”, which documents the experiences of online gender-based violence in Anglo and Francophone countries, women journalists and WHRDs are four times more likely to be attacked online than their male counterparts. They aren’t being harassed because they’re weak; they’re harassed because they dare to speak. Because they refuse to stay silent and unapologetically present in public spaces, digital or otherwise. Prominent media personality Betty Kyallo in Kenya, and other African women, have spoken about the relentless body shaming in social media spaces, sharing how that impacted their well-being and, importantly, how they fought back. It’s not about strength. It’s about power, and who is trying to silence it.
MYTH #5: Just log off if it’s too much
Telling women to log off shifts the burden from the perpetrator to the victim. It’s like asking someone to leave their home because someone broke in. Online spaces are not optional; they’re workspaces, marketplaces, and advocacy grounds. For many women, especially in journalism or civil society, being online isn’t a choice but a livelihood, and disconnecting from it only hands the perpetrators a win.
MYTH #6: Online gender-based violence only affects celebrities or public figures
Every day, women, girls and marginalised groups are regularly targeted, often due to multiple layers of discrimination. Young activists, students and workers have reported experiencing online abuse. During our Digital Ambassadors Program essay writing contest in 2023, one university student shared a moving reflection of how she was heavily ridiculed and insulted for posting photos of herself on social media. In her article, she shared how the comments section got flooded with negative remarks, and how some pictures landed on pages known for objectifying and trafficking women.
“I received unsolicited messages from men, some much older, seeking sexual relationships with me. I felt humiliated after this overwhelming experience and decided to take a break from social media altogether,” she said.
You don’t have to be a celebrity to be a target. You just have to be visible. Or opinionated. Or a woman. Today, the digital space has become a dark place for many African women.
MYTH #7: Women have the digital skills to stay safe
This is the aim and a work in progress. However, a World Bank report indicates that less than 19% of women have adequate digital skills to manage their online safety effectively, translating to 310 million fewer women than men. Digital safety skills are expedient with knowledge of how to create strong passwords, two-factor authentication, among others, but unfortunately, not all women in Africa have access to this knowledge or are digitally literate. So while this work is crucial and continues, women don’t only need to protect themselves; they equally must be protected from being targeted for their identity. Yes, teach women to protect themselves, but also perpetrators to stop harassing, and pressure platforms to take action.
Pollicy and partners through the Future of Work program have done significant work in recent years, training and equipping women in Africa, especially in the media and in politics, with digital safety and resilience skills. However, much investment is needed in this area to ensure more women journalists, grassroots political aspirants and activists in underserved communities such as Kisumu, Kenya, Eastern Uganda and other peri-urban communities are reached.
MYTH #8: If it’s really bad, just report it to the police
We wish it were that simple. Online Gender-Based Violence remains underreported in most countries. Few women who report online threats to a local police often face mocking questions, including why they’re on social media in the first place, trivialising their experiences. Law enforcement across the African continent is often untrained, under-resourced, and dismissive of online violence. In some cases, survivors are re-traumatised by the very systems meant to protect them.
Reporting mechanisms must be clear, safe, and survivor-centred. Otherwise, they just become one more reason women stay silent.
MYTH #9: The platforms care about women’s safety
If this were entirely the case and big tech truly cared, Facebook wouldn’t still be the top enabler of online gender-based violence across the region, as our research indicates. And Instagram wouldn’t recommend harmful content through its algorithms. Twitter (now X) wouldn’t allow abusers to make new accounts daily.
Sentiments gathered from our Dada Disinfo research, in-depth Interviews with experienced content creators also indicated that X, formerly known as Twitter, was the most unsafe platform where online violence was frequently experienced and practised. In some cases, content creators described how they were among X’s “Trending Topics” for days or weeks on end, which prolonged their OGBV experience.
Many women don’t report because they hold the view that nothing will happen. Others report and receive hollow messages: “This does not violate our community guidelines.” Platforms, however, continue to thrive without being held strongly accountable as a result of weak policies, laws and insufficient user backlash.
What Do We Do?
Debunking these myths is a first step towards change. We need real solutions:
- Policy change: Governments must protect their citizens both online and offline. This means passing digital safety laws that are gender-responsive and inclusive, addressing the specific forms of abuse women, girls, and the marginalised face online, including image-based abuse, cyberbullying, and doxxing. But it doesn’t end with passing laws; they must be enforced, with clear reporting mechanisms, penalties for offenders, and protections for survivors. Most importantly, policies should centre the survivor’s safety, privacy, and dignity, rather than retraumatizing them through winding legal processes.
- Platform accountability: Tech companies must incorporate language and cultural context. They need to proactively invest in trust and safety teams that understand regional languages, context, and culture. Automated moderation isn’t enough to ensure absolute safety; platforms must seek to develop tools that allow better control over interactions, transparent reporting systems, and undertake regular safety audits, especially in the Global South, where content moderation is often delayed or inadequate.
- Community care: Civil society, collectives, and allies must step up to support survivors. Online Gender-Based Violence thrives in silence. But when communities speak up and stand with survivors, the cycle of harm will be disrupted. Civil society groups, grassroots, and everyday techies must create safe spaces, offer peer support, and amplify survivors’ stories without judgment. We also need more mental health resources, legal aid, and solidarity networks so that no one faces this alone. When we all understand that ending OGBV is a collective responsibility, dealing with it will be much easier.
- Education: It is imperative to teach girls and boys alike about consent, respect, and digital rights. Young people, especially girls, must know that their rights online are just as valid as offline. Schools, parents, faith communities, and youth programs all play a role in fostering a generation that understands their digital boundaries, projects empathy, and mutual respect. Digital literacy must go beyond how to use tools, but also include how to use them responsibly and ethically.
And most importantly, believe survivors. Don’t second-guess their experience. Don’t ask what they wore or posted. Instead, ask what we’re doing to stop the harm.
Myth to Movement
In African culture, storytelling is a form of truth-telling. It’s how we pass wisdom, warn of danger, and spark change. In the same way, our stories are digital today, which means the insults, the threats, the bravery, and the resistance all unfold online. Let’s use that same space to tell new stories. Stories where survivors are protected, not where misogyny is endorsed. Where safety is a right and not a luxury. Where silence is no longer the price of visibility, because online gender-based violence isn’t a myth, it’s a reality.
Explore Pollicy’s research and tools for safer digital spaces:
