Alternate Realities, Alternate Internets: Feminist Research for a Feminist Internet

Understanding Online Gender-based Violence across Africa

Published in

Pollicy

6 min readAug 19, 2020

We are proud to release our latest report on the online experiences of women from across Africa. A year ago, we wrote this post about our intentions and goals, namely we wanted to understand how online gender-based violence manifests across Africa, and how technology companies, which are often based out of Africa, respond to this violence. When thinking of our afrofeminist future, we need to think of an internet where both the developers and users understand the intersectionality of the lived experience of an African woman.

One year, 3300+ interviews later, we have learned and grown tremendously from the experience of conducting feminist research within a beautiful community of like-minded researchers, mentors, supporters, all of whom have been extremely generous with their time, resources, wisdom and support.

This report comes at a time when the internet is proving to be the embodiment of old systems of oppression and violence making it necessary to view this problem as a continuum rather than as isolated incidents. In light of increased violence against women, an explosion of disinformation and growing polarity on the internet, these findings are timely in strengthening the argument for a radical shift in developing alternate digital networks grounded in feminist theory. Our report captures and documents the prevalence, experiences, and responses to online gender-based violence, and looks specifically at African women in sub-Saharan countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, and South Africa.

The study found the 28% of women interviewed had experienced some form of online harassment. Forty percent (40.7%) of these respondents believed that their gender was a primary reason for these attacks. In some countries like Ethiopia, ninety percent (90%) of the respondents who experienced this online violence either did not know the identity of the perpetrator or found the perpetrator to be a stranger, and it was difficult to ascertain the primary perpetrator.

“Online threats are mainly organized trolling. I’ve received death threats. They come up with campaigns or a hashtag, so they rant at me all day. These insults are based on me as a woman, my anatomy, my family.”
— IDI 004, Kenya

A majority (71.2%) of these incidents of online harassment occurred on Facebook. Results showed that up to 95% of the women were not aware of any policies and laws in place to protect women against online gender-based violence.

“Women are not reporting even domestic violence because of the culture and the norm. Imagine going to report online gender-based violence. They are going to make fun of you and tell you to come back when the real violence happens.”
— FGD Participant, Ethiopia

More disturbingly, 14.5% of women deleted or deactivated their accounts whereas 12.2% stopped using a digital service after experiencing online violence. This is another form of self-censorship and restrictions on the freedom of expression of women.

There is an urgent need for digital security resources to be adapted to local contexts and languages, as well as to be mainstreamed in educational curricula. Other recommendations include training law enforcement personnel on a gender-sensitive digital safety curriculum to address complaints of online gender-based violence and to provide timely technical assistance, counseling, and support to women who do choose to report. Countries should also adopt data protection and privacy laws, as well as ensure that commissions and mechanisms are in place to implement data protection laws.

This is, however, just the tip of the iceberg. Further research is needed to focus on the experiences of people with disabilities, sexual minorities and displaced persons. There are limits to the impact that “victim-focused” research alone can achieve, and there a need to move the needle on responses by government bodies (eg. African Union, iNGOs) and social media platforms to prevent online gender-based violence and deal with perpetrators and aggressors in an appropriate manner.

You can access the full study, a comparative legal analysis and an interactive version of the research at https://ogbv.pollicy.org.

Tigist Hussen, Project Coordinator and Research Lead at the Feminist Internet Research Network spoke to us briefly about our work, “This research project provides a much needed context specific feminist perspective to understand Online Gender Based Violence in Africa. The data analysis covers 5 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and provides valuable insights and important clues for policy advocacy.”

All of us at Pollicy would like to thank the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Internews, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and everyone else that provided support that brought this project to life.

Social Media Posts

Violence against women and girls results in serious health problems and intensifies women’s digital exclusion. Findings from @PollicyOrg’s new study here explores how women across Africa deal with oGBV https://ogbv.pollicy.org/report #EndoGBV

28% of women interviewed reported experiencing some form of online harassment. What does it mean to be a woman on the internet? Explore the findings in @PollicyOrg’s latest report, Alternate Realities, Alternate Internets
https://ogbv.pollicy.org #EndoGBV

How do women across Africa respond to online violence? How do technology platforms respond to the needs of African women? Explore @PollicyOrg’s findings in their latest research, Alternate Realities, Alternate Internets
https://ogbv.pollicy.org #EndoGBV

Technology & the internet play a role in magnifying violence against women and girls. To understand the experiences of women in online spaces. @PollicyOrg conducted a research study across 5 African countries. Here are the findings: https://ogbv.pollicy.org/report.pdf #EndoGBV

95% of women interviewed in Uganda were not aware of any policies to protect women from online GBV. Explore these findings on the online experiences of women across Africa through @PollicyOrg’s interactive storytelling on Alternate Realities, Alternate Internets: https://ogbv.pollicy.org

Repeated negative encounters fundamentally impact how women navigate and utilize the internet. Learn more about @PollicyOrg’s research on the online experiences of women from across Africa: https://ogbv.pollicy.org/report.pdf #MakingAFeministInternet