A Global Emergency On Our Screens

Every year on November 25, the world pauses to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It is both a moment of reflection and a call to action. But increasingly, reflection is no longer enough. As violence against women and girls mutates, adapts, and migrates into new spaces, our responses must do the same.

In 2025, with the global theme for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence being “Unite to End Digital Violence against all Women and Girls”, the urgency is clearer than ever: the fight against gender-based violence is now also a fight for digital safety, dignity, and justice as the world witnesses the rise of digital violence against women and girls.

Violence against women has never been confined to back alleys, closed doors, or dangerous streets. Today, it lives in phones, computers, social media timelines, encrypted messaging apps, online gaming spaces and comment sections. It is present in revenge porn shared in WhatsApp groups, nude images generated by artificial intelligence without consent, cyberstalking carried out by former partners, sexual extortion on Instagram, misogynistic smear campaigns on X (formerly Twitter), coordinated bullying on TikTok, and doxxing that exposes women’s home addresses and phone numbers to thousands of strangers with the click of a button.

From online harassment to AI-powered abuse, violence against women has gone digital and our response must be just as powerful. For millions of women and girls, the digital world mirrors the same dangers as the physical one and the consequences are just as real. Behind our booming social media culture lies a growing epidemic of online abuse targeting women and girls.

The New Frontline of Violence Is Digital

Digital violence is real violence. Its impacts are severe and long-lasting: trauma, depression, anxiety, reputational damage, job loss, forced relocation, withdrawal from public life, and in some cases, suicide. Yet in many societies, including Nigeria, it is still minimised, misunderstood, or dismissed as a “social media issue” rather than recognised for what it truly is: gender-based violence in a modern guise.

The theme this year does not emerge in a vacuum. According to global estimates, one in three women will experience violence in her lifetime. For women in public life—journalists, activists, politicians, academics, athletes, and entrepreneurs—the risk is far higher online than offline. Women who speak up about politics, feminism, corruption, religion, or social norms attract disproportionate abuse, including rape threats and graphic humiliation campaigns designed to silence them. The intention is clear: to discourage women from participating in public life.

In Africa, and particularly Nigeria, this danger is compounded by other factors: weak legal frameworks for online harms, limited digital literacy, poor cybercrime reporting systems, and deep-rooted gender norms that blame women for the violence they experience. A woman whose private images are leaked is judged, shamed, and interrogated before her perpetrator is ever questioned. She is asked, “Why did you take the photo?” rather than, “Who violated your consent?” The violence is then replicated from the original act to the social response, leaving women and girls unprotected in virtual spaces.

Let us be clear: digital violence is no less harmful because it is not physical. It is psychological, emotional, reputational, economic, and sometimes physical too. Online threats of rape, murder, or abduction are not “jokes.” They create real fear that forces women to change their routines, close their businesses, move homes, hire security, withdraw from digital spaces, or live in constant anxiety. Some women choose silence over safety, erasing years of work building online visibility, advocacy, or professional networks.

Yet, Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest digital populations. Women are increasingly utilising digital tools to build businesses, create communities, educate others, fundraise, advocate, and challenge injustice. Social media has enabled a new generation of female journalists, filmmakers, coders, campaigners, and entrepreneurs. But if digital spaces become unsafe for women, we risk losing one of the most transformative tools for women’s empowerment in the 21st century.

When Violence Goes Viral, Log Off The Silence

The real battle against violence targeting women and girls is happening online, and we must refuse silence. Digital platforms are becoming the new battleground for women’s safety, dignity and freedom of expression.

Ending digital violence requires more than hashtags and webinars. It demands collective action across government, technology companies, civil society, educators, parents, traditional institutions, the private sector and citizens. The responsibility cannot fall on women and girls alone to “protect themselves” by going offline. The solution is not silence, but systemic change.

First, laws must catch up with reality. In Nigeria, although the Cybercrimes Act addresses some offences, it is poorly implemented, little known and often inaccessible. Revenge pornography, deepfake abuse and online harassment remain underreported and under-prosecuted, as TechHerNG, a Nigerian Feminist Tech NGO, seeks to address through Kuram — a GBV reporting portal). Survivors often encounter officers who lack digital expertise, resources, or dismiss cases as mere “internet issues.” Digital violence must be clearly recognised, criminalised and actively prosecuted with survivor-centred support.

Second, technology companies must take responsibility. Reporting systems remain slow, opaque and inconsistent. Harmful content targeting women often stays online for days while survivors suffer. Platforms must move beyond performative policies to real accountability, faster takedowns, stronger victim protections, clearer processes, local language moderators and transparency, especially in African contexts.

Third, education is critical. Digital literacy must include online safety, consent, privacy, respectful communication and bystander intervention. Boys must learn that online harassment is violence, and girls must be empowered to know their rights, report abuse and protect themselves. The internet is not a separate universe; it reflects our values.

Finally, we must confront the root: misogyny. Digital violence is an extension of offline patriarchy. Harmful gender norms and entitlement over women’s bodies and autonomy now find new expression online. Technology did not invent gender inequality and violence against women; it merely amplified it.

Silence Is Part of the Violence

Digital abuse against women is not “just online”. It is real, harmful, and demands urgent action. These 16 Days of Activism must go beyond symbolism. Conversations and campaigns matter, but so do measurable commitments — institutions publishing digital safety policies, media houses protecting female journalists, universities creating reporting systems, employers recognising digital violence in harassment policies, religious leaders preaching accountability, and donors supporting feminist tech solutions led by African women.

Unity in action looks like parents teaching consent and digital responsibility, schools addressing cyberbullying, police trained in digital forensics, judges setting precedents, tech companies hiring African women safety experts, men calling out abuse, communities supporting survivors, and leaders acknowledging that online violence is real violence. Above all, it means believing women and girls.

Violence thrives in silence and anonymity. We must bring it into the open to end it. The internet has empowered millions of women; it must not become another site of fear. We must collectively challenge harmful behaviours and build digital spaces where women and girls can exist, create, lead, and thrive without fear.

If history remembers 2025, let it be as the year we united not only to condemn violence, but to dismantle it both online and offline. In the Digital Age, violence has no justification. We must unite to protect the dignity of all women and girls. The call is clear: Unite to End Digital Violence against all Women and Girls, not some, not a few, but all.