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AMA, Human Rights, Technology

Digital violence is intensifying, yet nearly half of the world’s women and girls lack legal protection from digital abuse

MaraviPost

UN Women’s 16 Days of Activism campaign demands a world where technology is a force for equality – not harm.

New York, USA, 20 November 2025 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/-The digital world promised connection and empowerment – but for millions of women and girls, it has become a world of abuse. Digital violence is spreading at alarming speed fueled by artificial intelligence, anonymity, and the absence of effective laws and accountability. It now spans every corner of the Internet – from online harassment and cyberstalking to doxing, non-consensual image sharing, deepfakes, and disinformation – weaponized to silence, shame, and intimidate women and girls. According to World Bank data, fewer than 40 per cent of countries have laws protecting women from cyber harassment or cyber stalking. This leaves 44 per cent of the world’s women and girls – 1.8 billion – without access to legal protection.

Stock photo posed by model.

Women in leadership, business, and politics face deepfakes, coordinated harassment, and gendered disinformation designed to drive them to deplatform or leave public life altogether. Across the world, one in four women journalists report online threats of physical violence, including death threats. 

“What begins online doesn’t stay online. Digital abuse spills into real life, spreading fear, silencing voices, and—in the worst cases—leading to physical violence and femicide,” said UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous. “Laws must evolve with technology to ensure that justice protects women both online and offline. Weak legal protections leave millions of women and girls vulnerable, while perpetrators act with impunity. This is unacceptable. Through our 16 Days of Activism campaign, UN Women calls for a world where technology serves equality, not harm.”

Reporting of online abuse and violence remains low, justice systems are ill-equipped, and tech platforms face little accountability. The rise of AI-generated abuse has only deepened impunity across borders and platforms. But there are signs of progress. Laws are beginning to evolve to meet the challenges of technological change: from the UK’s Online Safety Act to Mexico’s Ley Olimpia to Australia’s Online Safety Act and the EU’s Digital Safety Act, new reforms are taking shape. As of 2025, 117 countries reported efforts addressing digital violence, but efforts remain fragmented for a transnational challenge.

UN Women is calling for:

  • Global cooperation to ensure digital platforms and AI tools meet safety and ethics standards.
  • Support for survivors of digital violence by funding women’s rights organizations.
  • Holding perpetrators accountable through better laws and enforcement.
  • Tech companies to step up by hiring more women to create safer online spaces, removing harmful content quickly, and responding to reports of abuse.
  • Investments in prevention and culture change through digital literacy and online safety training for women and girls, and programmes that challenge toxic online cultures.

Feminist advocacy has driven global recognition of digital violence as a threat to women’s fundamental human rights resulting in growing prioritization and action against digital violence by countries. However, shrinking civic space, coupled with unprecedented funding cuts and pushback against feminist movements threatens to undermine decades of progress. In this context, initiatives such as the EU-funded ‘ACT to End Violence against Women and Girls’ programme are more important than ever to support feminist movements in their push for justice.

This year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign calls for urgent global action to close legal gaps and hold perpetrators and tech platforms accountable. To support governments and policymakers, UN Women is launching two new tools – the Supplement to the Handbook for Legislation on Violence against Women on Technology-facilitated violence against women and girls and the Guide for Police on Addressing Technology-Facilitated Violence, which complements previous guidance for police on addressing violence against women and girls from the Handbook on Gender-Responsive Police Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence – providing practical guidance for prevention and response. Until the digital space is safe for all women and girls, true equality will remain out of grasp, everywhere.

Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of UNWOMEN.

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About the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is a global campaign led by UN Women under the UNiTE to End Violence against Women initiative. It runs each year from 25 November to 10 December, connecting the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Human Rights Day.

In 2025, the campaign focuses on ending digital violence against all women and girls – one of the fastest-evolving forms of abuse worldwide. Digital violence includes online harassment, stalking, gendered disinformation, deepfakes, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images, all of which are rising sharply as technology advances.

The 2025 UNiTE campaign calls on governments, technology companies, and communities to act now – to strengthen laws, end impunity, and hold platforms accountable. It urges sustained investment in prevention, digital literacy, and survivor-centred services. It also calls for long-term support to women’s rights organizations that are leading efforts to make digital spaces safe and inclusive for all.

About ACT

The Advocacy, Coalition Building and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) programme, is a game-changing commitment between the European Commission and UN Women as co-leaders of the Action Coalition on Gender Based Violence (GBV), in collaboration with the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. The ACT shared advocacy agenda is elevating the priorities and amplifying the voices of feminist women’s rights movements and providing a collaborative framework focused on common priorities, strategies and actions.

About UN Women

UN Women exists to advance women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. As the lead UN entity on gender equality, we shift laws, institutions, social behaviours and services to close the gender gap and build an equal world for all women and girls. We keep the rights of women and girls at the centre of global progress – always, everywhere. Because gender equality is not just what we do. It is who we are.

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Regional

Africa’s digital leaders empowered on online habits

Maravi Post Reporter

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Young people who participated in the 2021 edition of the Africa Digital Leaders Programme have been empowered on the best habits to exhibit while online.

The Africa Digital Leaders Programme, initiated by the Child Online Africa is a hybrid fellowship programme targeting young leaders between the ages 8-16year old.

It is aimed at building the skills and capacity of participants to interact with technology responsibly and be able to minimize risks and maximize opportunities that may come along with their engagements online.

In a statement Child Online Africa said “We know children and young people are excited by the use of technology and most of them get committed to the point of addiction if they do not know the rules of balance.”

“Coupled with the fact that children and young people are left out of the discussion regarding internet governance, at COA we believe the earlier young people know and understand their way around technology the better the future could be shaped for Africa.”

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Experts in the tech-industry say it is important people take their personal safety online seriously and engage in habits that also do not violate the rights of others.

CEO of Innovare Ltd, C.K Bruce said for people to be cyber secured, they would need to have a change of behaviour.

For Bruce institutions and organizations would have to take lead roles in that behaviour change agenda.

He warned people against exposing their digital presence through geo-tagging saying he finds it “so worrying some” adding that “we need to be responsible. We need to ensure that we are not just doing things for doing sake.”

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Bruce encourage young people to take up training programs on online safety and good behaviour online to better protect themselves and also develop a career path.

An information security associate, Desmond Israel highlighted the need for internet users on social media to be wary of cyberbullying, hacking, fraud and scams and fake news.

He stressed the need for young people to build a responsible digital identity while online saying “if you go insulting people on Facebook, one day you will see them in real life. One day you will see on panels when you go for interviews.”

Israel also advised people to be careful about the amount of information they put on the internet to avoid being vulnerable when those information are later used against them.

Having strong passwords and improved online security to avoid falling victim to hackers was also highlighted by Israel.

The fellowship programme takes into consideration the peculiar needs and situation in Africa in its implementation.

Child Online Africa said it hopes the programme “will give the opportunity to the African Child to hone his/her skills in preparation for the 4th Industrial Revolution takeover.”

Opinion: Embracing the Challenge – A Case for Africa’s Bright Future

Source: Africafeeds.com

Source: Africa Feeds

Regional

Child Online Africa’s launches safety guide for families

Maravi Post Reporter

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The Ghana based group, Child Online Africa has launched what it calls an Online Safety guide for the Family.

This document is to offer a range of information from a number of different sources, including the information for children and parents since they are the gate keepers of children most often.

At a news conference the executive director of the organization, Awo Aidam Amenyah said “most young people are often eager to be seen and get ‘likes’, sharing too much information about themselves. They respond to personal queries and share personal information, doing things they wouldn’t dream of doing in a face-to-face situation.”

Poorly adapted online behavior and information-sharing can trigger bullying, sextortion, public embarrassment, fraud… It is a key factor in opening the door to grooming, which can rapidly escalate to outcomes like sexual exploitation or even radicalization.”

According to Child Online Africa the Online Safety guide for the Family is helpful document that will aid in starting the cyber safety awareness conversation while educating more Ghanaian parents on where to report threats associated with the use of the internet without compromising on simple and practical solutions for the purposes of parental guidance.

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“Child Online Africa believes that the only way to make the internet space safe for our children is by starting from home, where the parents and other adults in the family play that socialization role by making sure they do their best to teach children the basics before handing them a device or allowing them to play on platforms,” Amenyah said.

She also highlighted why it is important that “everyone better understands how digital technology and other products of artificial intelligence are shaping the society in general.

Rather than educational focus on coding, companies could get together with educators to create learning programmes around these issues, and support teacher training for the implementation.”

The safety guide for the Family has been translated into three international languages (English, Hausa & French) and three other local dialects (Twi, Ga and Ewe) to help reach those outside the English language circles.

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“While we roll out this initiative at Child Online Africa, we appeal to the law enforcement agencies especially the Ghana police service to scale up support to the National Cybersecurity Centre by effecting the arrest of operators of harmful sites and other persons who are found engaging in activities of cyber-bullying and other forms of activities which endanger the safety of our children using the internet, Amenyah said.

Nice Net November campaign

Meanwhile the group is also pushing for improved safety for children online across Africa.

The group’s annual campaign dubbed #NiceNetNovember is held every November since 2016, devoted to activities that reinforce awareness creation for child online safety effort.

The Nice Net Campaign for this year was heralded by the Hike for the child online campaign.

The campaign which is a charity cause was an initiative to spark up the discussion and support for safety and well-being of children across Africa, and was climaxed by the 3rd Child Online Protection Forum.

According to officials of Child Online Africa, this year’s edition was in collaboration with Ghana’s Head of States Awards Gold Awards participants. The participants over a three day period conquered the tallest mountain in Ghana located at Afadjato in the Volta Region.

Awo Aidam Amenyah said “many of us have openly welcomed the internet into our lives. For most of us the internet is part of our daily routine for keeping in touch with friends and family, working, studying, playing games, shopping and paying bills.”

She adds that “while the internet offers us many benefits, there are also a range of safety and security risks associated with its use. These include threats to the integrity of our identities, our privacy and the security of our electronic communications, in particular financial transactions, as well as exposure to offensive and illegal content and behaviour.”

Africa urged to support adopted General Comment No.25 (2021)

Source: Africafeeds.com

Source: Africa Feeds

Regional

Ghana launches ‘Hike For the Child Online’ Campaign

Maravi Post Reporter
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Child Online Africa (COA) in Collaboration with the Head of State Award Scheme – Ghana has launched an online safety campaign called ‘Hike for the child online’ campaign.

Launched on October 22, 2021, the charity campaign is an initiative to spark up discussion and support for the safety and well-being of children online in Africa.

The first edition of the initiative in 2019 witnessed the Executive Director of the Child Online Africa (COA) embarking on an expedition to the summit of Kilimanjaro, the highest and tallest mountain in Africa and the only free-standing mountain in the world.

This year’s edition which will be a combination of exploration, research at the Shai Hills Game Reserve and a hiking to the summit of Mountain Afadja, tallest mountain in Ghana located at in the Volta Region of the country from October 22, 2021.

The organizers say this year’s edition will bring a whole new exciting experience to the campaign as over 100 young Gold Award participants of the Head of State Award Scheme carry out an exploration and research activity at the Shai Hills, Princess Town and Lake Bosomtwi concurrently as part of their 2021 Gold Award Challenge.

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There will be group works and discussions as well as project presentations on Why we need to protect children online. These discussions are going to be happening at stated 3 different Regions concurrently where mobile phone ownership among individuals of age 5 and older stands at 73.7%, 47.4% and 54.5% respectively according to the Household Survey on ICT in Ghana by the National Communications Authority (NCA) of Ghana.

It is also expected a group of young professionals and managers from different field of professions will take on the challenge of hiking and camping with the stars at the summit of Afadjato in the Volta Region.

The landmark partnership between Child Online Africa (COA) and the Head of State Award Scheme (HOSA) is in furtherance of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) as continuum to the Child Online Protection campaign across Africa.

With the hashtag #OnlineSafety4Gold, we hope this campaign will raise the necessary awareness on the need to have all stakeholders handy and involved in the efforts being made in Africa to keep children safe while they are online.

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Source: Africa Feeds