‘Technology-facilitated gender-based violence isn’t a side effect of digital growth. It’s the price women pay for being online.’ Originally published on Global Voices Women using social media. Image by cottonbro studio on Pexels ( Free to use ). In early 2025, researchers tracking African elections uncovered a wave of AI-generated deepfake videos targeting women journalists and female candidates in Ghana, Senegal, and Namibia — synthetic clips designed to humiliate and discredit them, and drive them offline. The attack was chillingly effective, echoing a broader pattern in which technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) silences women’s voices at precisely the moments they most need to be heard. A global survey released in April shows the scale of the problem. More than half of women entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries report online harassment, and four in ten have pulled back from public life to protect themselves. Among women journalists, the picture is worse, with nearly three-quarters saying they have endured abuse that is often tied to disinformation and deepfakes. Yet most digital platforms still act on safety only after harm has spread, treating protection as an upgrade instead of a core function. Safety by design flips that script by embedding privacy, consent, and abuse detection into code and business rules from the start. What exactly is TFGBV — and why does “Safety by Design” matter? Technology-facilitated gender-based violence ( TFGBV ) is “any act that is committed, assisted, aggravated, or amplified through digital tools and ICTs that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm.” It ranges from image-based abuse, deep-fake pornography, and sextortion to doxxing, cyber-stalking, hate speech, and gendered disinformation. Because the content can be replicated, searched, and shared indefinitely, the harm is portable across platforms and persistent over time, blurring the boundary between “online” and “offline” abuse. A United Nations Women poll found that 58 percent of girls and young women have experienced at least one form of online harassment, often before they turn twenty-five. In Kenya, a 2024 study of university students found that almost 90 percent witnessed technology-facilitated abuse on campus timelines, and nearly four in ten had been targets themselves. These numbers point to a crisis where victims frequently respond by self-censoring, stepping back from public life, and losing economic or political opportunities, which in turn suppresses diverse voices in civic discourse. Support Global Voices as we publish more articles like this one For more information about this campaign, please go here. And that’s why Safety by Design matters. The Australian eSafety Commissioner frames Safety by Design as putting “user safety and rights at the center of product development,” encouraging companies to anticipate, detect, and eliminate online harms before they occur rather than “moving fast and breaking things.” Safety by Design provides a common vocabulary and measurable benchmarks for safety. In short, it moves TFGBV prevention from an afterthought to a design requirement, the digital equivalent of fitting seatbelts in every car. Responsibility spans the entire ecosystem, encompassing platforms, regulators, developers, and civic groups, rather than resting on engineers alone. The role of technology developers and civil society Civil society is often the first place survivors turn and the last line of accountability when companies or states fall short. Across Africa, feminist tech collectives, digital-rights NGOs, and faith-based survivor networks are converting lived experience into data, tools, and hard policy wins, while plugging into global coalitions for bigger leverage. East African trainers from the Safe Sisters network travel from market towns to radio stations, teaching women journalists how to spot spyware and store evidence in the cloud. South African coders behind the GRIT mobile app are demonstrating what safety-first engineering looks like in practice. After conversations with survivors of domestic violence, the team built an encrypted vault that lets users record evidence and store court details in a cloud space that only they can unlock. The feature has pushed downloads of the app past 10,000 , and prosecutors say the secure files are already strengthening cases in Johannesburg courts. In Kampala , Uganda, a feminist civic tech group called Pollicy has taken a different route. It's Digital Safe Tea game walks players through a choose-your-own-adventure story in which online harassment and doxxing emerge as plot twists. Every decision a player makes is logged anonymously, and the data set is shared with local start-ups so they can close design gaps before the product ships. Ugandan university clubs now use the game in digital safety workshops. These local experiments draw on a global handbook. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner publishes an open-access Safety by Design toolkit that guides developers through risk reviews and privacy by default settings. Kenyan regulators cite t he same resource in a draft rule that would require all new social apps to file safety assessments before launch. As African coders adopt the framework, the hope is that every upload button and contact list will carry built-in defenses long before threats appear. The role of social media platforms Social networks say they are building safer feeds, yet the spotlight has now shifted to what they do for African users specifically. TikTok took a public step last year when it launched a Sub-Saharan Africa Safety Advisory Council in Nairobi and asked lawyers, journalists, and digital rights advocates from Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa to critique every policy tweak before code changes go live. Council members meet quarterly and publish minutes so watchdog groups can track whether recommendations turn into product updates. Regional apps are following suit. Ayoba, the chat and content service backed by MTN, has updated its servers to screen every photo against a list of banned images supplied by domestic gender rights groups. Engineers say the check runs in milliseconds and blocks non-consensual intimate pictures before anyone can forward them. Users who flag missed material now see faster takedowns as the filter learns from each report. African survivors are also plugging into a global safety net. Stop NCII , a tool developed by an alliance led by Meta , lets a victim create a digital fingerprint of an intimate photo without uploading the file. That fingerprint travels to dozens of platforms, which then block any upload that matches it. The role of governments Ghana has been on the cutting edge of preventing TFGBV since its Cybersecurity Act took effect in 2020, turning the sharing of intimate images without consent into a criminal offence that can draw a three-year sentence. South Africa soon followed with its Cybercrimes Act, which makes revenge pornography illegal and applies the same duty of care to anyone who reposts the material. Kenya is now in public hearings on draft child online safety rules that would force every social platform and messaging app to file a safety impact assessment before launch. Regional bodies want those national moves to add up. The African Union (AU) Child Online Safety and Empowerment Policy , adopted last year, calls on all member states to write corporate duties into law and to publish public dashboards that track takedown speeds and language coverage. Criminal statutes set the floor, but design mandates and transparency hooks raise the ceiling. When African legislatures pair Ghana-style image-abuse laws with Kenya-style risk-assessment duties and measure progress against AU benchmarks, platforms have no wiggle room to treat TFGBV safeguards as an optional add-on. Borrowing proven mechanisms from Australia’s Online Safety Act can accelerate the process, ensuring every new feature that ships is safe by default, no matter which continent codes it. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence isn’t a side effect of digital growth. It’s the price women pay for being online. The good news is that every piece of Africa’s safety-by-design puzzle is finally on the table. From Lagos to Nairobi, developers are hard-coding privacy safeguards, platforms are inviting African experts into the engine room, governments are embedding design mandates into licenses and AU policy, and civil society networks are feeding survivor data directly into product sprints and policy drafts. It is only th rough such continental collaboration and follow through that Africa might be able to reduce online gender-based-violence. Written by Cecilia Maundu

Seven African countries are among the ten lowest-ranked nations worldwide in terms of gender parity Originally published on Global Voices The cover art for the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2025. Image from WEF at Wikipedia . License CC BY-SA 3.0 The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released its Global Gender Gap Report 2025, and seven African countries are among the ten lowest-ranked nations worldwide in terms of gender parity. In this latest edition , Pakistan sits at the very bottom — 148th out of 148 economies covered, with a gender parity score of 56.7 percent. Just above it are Sudan (57.0 percent, 147th), Chad (57.1 percent, 146th), and Iran (58.3 percent, 145th). Other African countries in the bottom 10 include Guinea (59.5 percent, 144th), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (60.1 percent, 143rd), Niger (61.3 percent, 142nd), Algeria (61.4 percent, 141st), and Mali (61.7 percent, 140th). The Global Gender Gap Index The Global Gender Gap Index annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. These four indicators offer a data-driven lens on the structural inequalities women face globally. In terms of gender gap rankings, Sub-Saharan Africa ranks sixth globally (of eight surveyed regions), with a gender parity score of 68.0 percent. Namibia leads the continent, achieving 81.1 percent gender parity and placing eighth globally. On the other hand, Sudan remains one of the worst performers, with a score of 57.0 percent and one of the world’s lowest levels of female political representation and labor force participation. In economic participation and opportunity, Sub-Saharan Africa comes fifth , with a regional average of 67.5 percent — a 4.8 percentage-point improvement since 2006. However, disparities persist. Chad records the lowest global score in this subindex at 44.4 percent, while Botswana tops the world at 87.3 percent. Liberia (86.5 percent), Eswatini (85.6 percent), Zambia , and Nigeria (76.2 percent) also rank among the top 25 globally in this economic category, at 2nd, 3rd, and 24th, respectively, while South Africa places 98th. Conversely, Sudan (31.3 percent) and Egypt (40.6 percent) are among the bottom five globally, with extremely low earned-income ratios and minimal representation of women in leadership roles. Sub-Saharan Africa ranks eighth in educational attainment with a score of 85.6 percent, up 5.2 percentage points since 2006. This improvement, according to the report, is largely driven by improved enrolment parity at all levels of education. In line with other regions, women surpass men in tertiary enrolment rates. Botswana, Lesotho , and Namibia are among the 41 countries globally that have reached full parity in educational attainment. In the health and survival subindex, Cape Verde , Eswatini, Lesotho, Mauritius , Namibia, and Uganda are among the 17 countries that share the top global position with a parity score of 98 percent. While Liberia (95.5 percent) and Algeria (95.4 percent) fall within the bottom 10 globally on this metric. On political empowerment, Sub-Saharan Africa ranks fifth globally, scoring 22.2 percent. Ethiopia leads the continent in this subindex, placing 12th worldwide with 48.9 percent . By contrast, Nigeria (3.6 percent), Eswatini (3.6 percent), and Sudan (3.0 percent) ranked among the lowest globally, occupying the 143rd, 144th, and 146th positions, respectively. Notably, Rwanda remains the only African economy to have achieved full parliamentary gender parity, with women holding 50 percent or more of legislative seats . South Africa and Ethiopia have also reached gender parity in their ministerial cabinets. Across the continent, women now occupy 40.2 percent of ministerial positions and 37.7 percent of parliamentary seats. Spotlight on the DRC Even though many African countries face gender challenges, the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), ranked 143rd with a score of 60.1 percent on the Global Gender Gap Index, deserves particular attention. Despite being blessed with vast natural resources and being home to the world's second-largest rainforest , the DRC remains one of the five poorest nations in the world, according to the World Bank Group (WBG). It also ranks 175th out of 182 countries on the Human Development Index. According to a UN policy brief , inequalities permeate different areas of society in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with very few women having access to decent jobs, and girls are less likely to have access to education than boys. “In the DRC, women are underrepresented in parliament, local governments, political parties, and leadership roles across nearly every sector,” says Byobe Malenga , a multimedia journalist and media entrepreneur based in Kinshasa, in an interview with Global Voices. He notes that women remain largely marginalised in decision-making spheres due to social norms and structural inequalities. Some of the biggest barriers to political inclusion include lack of funding, sexism, political violence, and limited access to education. “In the country's provinces, there is only one woman at the head of government, as governor, despite the country being headed by a woman as prime minister,” Byobe adds. “And it’s the same story in many other spaces where decisions are made.” Though articles 5, 14, and 15 of the DRC constitution establish a legal basis for equality and equity policies, women currently occupy only 7.2 percent of positions at the highest level of decision-making at the national level in the parliament and government. Climate shocks are also deepening the divide. Women, who make up around 73 percent of the country’s agricultural workforce, are hit hardest by floods and droughts that wipe out crops and income. “Women are not always entirely ignored in such situations,” Byobe says, “but they are often relegated to secondary or symbolic roles, without real decision-making power.” According to the World Bank Group (WBG), 16.8 percent of Congolese women complete secondary school, half the rate of men. “We must empower one another,” Byobe says. “That way, we strengthen our communities,” but without urgent interventions, the country’s gender ranking will continue to mask the everyday hardships the country is facing. Most significant trends According to the report , Benin recorded the most significant improvement on the continent, gaining 4.6 percentage points and climbing 21 places to reach the 113th position. Zambia also made notable progress, jumping 13 places to 79th. However, not all trends were positive. Togo and Sierra Leone declined by 5.3 and 3.1 percentage points, placing 121st and 112th, respectively. Mozambique dropped 26 places to 53rd. Nigeria, meanwhile, climbed one step to rank 124th, even as Kenya fell 23 places to 98th. Compared to 2024, the global gender gap has narrowed slightly , from 68.4 percent to 68.8 percent in 2025. Among the 145 economies tracked consistently across both years, the modest progress is primarily driven by improvements in Political Empowerment (up 0.7 percentage points to 23.2 percent) and Economic Participation and Opportunity, which increased by 0.4 percentage points (from 60.3 percent to 60.7 percent). At the global level, Iceland (92.6 percent) continues to lead the Global Gender Gap Index, holding the top position for 16 consecutive years , and remains the only economy to have closed more than 90 percent of its gender gap since 2022. The 2025 Global Gender Gap Index highlights that no economy has yet achieved full gender parity, and at the current pace, it will take 123 years to reach it globally . Written by Adesewa Olofinko