By Victoria Ojeme

Online gender abuse communicated through social networking sites has increased considerably in recent years and criminal justice and other social policy agencies have been slow to respond to the immense change that has occurred as a result of the way that individuals interact in the digital space.

The emerging nature of the problem has created a policy vacuum, with evidence suggesting that a lag in institutional responsiveness leaves victims without adequate protection or recourse.

First, online gender-based violence (GBV) includes a broad range of behaviours facilitated through digital technologies. This term includes the use of telecommunications systems to control current or former intimate partners; stalking and harassment through telecommunications tools and on social media platforms; and exposing personal information or abusive content (e.g., the non-consensual sharing of sexualized images or videos of women and girls) through content hosts and social media platforms.

A 2020 survey by Plan International conducted on 14,000 girls aged 15-25 in 22 countries, including Nigeria showed that more than half (58%) have been harassed or abused online. An unfortunate effect of online violence against women is self-censorship or total withdrawal from the use of ICTs.

Sarah Carson, Head of Youth, Movements & Campaigns at Plan International said “Online violence is serious, it causes real harm, and it’s silencing girls’ voices. Girls need to know that when they’re abused, stalked and threatened online, they can report it to the social media platform. That they’ll be listened to. That action will be taken, and perpetrators will be held to account.”

Acknowledging the weight of this latent problem, one of the girls involved in the survey said “Social media plays an essential role in girls’ lives. I hope that social media platforms continue to collaborate with different voices and make the platforms a community where everyone can feel glad to be part of.”

However, critics would ask where to draw the line between freedom of speech and censorship of online GBV. Too often, freedom of speech has been thought to be directly opposed to measures to prevent abuse. That is not wholly true. Freedom comes with responsibility which means the respect of the rights of others.

It is important to recognize that while the Internet can be a vehicle for abuse, it is also a channel for women experiencing GBV to seek support and access resources. More broadly, as digital media and communications technologies permeate everyday life, access to these technologies is important for women’s social and political participation and access to life-enhancing services, health care, education, and economic opportunities

So, addressing online GBV requires the active and careful participation of state and non-state actors involved in Internet governance.

The core of the United Nations Guiding Principles on internet governance is that businesses have responsibilities to “respect” human rights, which “means that they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and should address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved”

For Internet intermediaries, the first step in fulfilling their responsibility to respect human rights is to identify the impacts that their systems have on the rights of their users and others who may be affected. This implies, first, “that companies have a responsibility to assess the way their practices, services, and products impact on human rights, and to mitigate negative impact”

Internet Intermediaries also have a part to play in mitigating the risks of online violence against women. Tech companies need to explicitly recognize cyber violence against women and girls as unlawful behaviour, and demonstrate increased and expedited cooperation in providing relief to victims/ survivors within the capacities that the companies have, providing accessible and transparent reporting and complaints procedures for online and ICT-facilitated violence against women and girls including social media sites, GPS, phones, etc. In addition, investing in education campaigns on preventing ICT-facilitated violence against women and girls, promoting human rights and digital security for all and sharing online safety advice for women, youth and children are some of the strategies internet intermediaries can employ in combatting online violence against women.

In Nigeria, there are also a handful of laws that have a bearing on online GBV. For example, the Cyber Crime Act of 2015 was enacted to provide a legal and regulatory framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of cybercrimes in Nigeria. The Act under Section 24 criminalizes cyber stalking, cyber bullying, blackmail/ extortion and revenge porn. This provision has however been abused by law enforcement agents in Nigeria in curbing expression online, rather than being invoked to protect people against online harm.

Also, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act was enacted to prohibit all forms of violence against persons in private and public life. The VAPP Act covers a wide range of offences offline that seem to cover similar offences online. Provisions of the VAPP Act criminalize coercing another person to act to the detriment of an individual’s physical or psychological wellbeing , placing a person in fear of physical injury, causing emotional, verbal and psychological abuse on another, intimidation, indecent exposure and stalking. The law does cite harassment as inclusive of stalking, repeatedly making telephone calls to another person, repeatedly sending or delivering information through different means including email, text messages or other ‘objects’. This leaves it open to interpretation, and we may infer that the provision covers cyber stalking. Apart from the prescribed punishments upon conviction, victims of these offences may also apply to the court for protection orders.

In an interview, Weng Henrietta Dung, the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Officer at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Nigeria said most instances of online violence in Nigeria go unreported, because of the non-existence of solid legislation on this topic and the general nonchalance towards such.

“Online violence might be easily overlooked in a country like Nigeria. This is mainly a cultural problem, the average Nigerian might assume it silly to be bothered about threats online, cyber bullying, and generally things that occur online and not offline.

“A reorientation or awareness rising of not just citizens, but law enforcement agents, policymakers and others on these issues would be a step in the right direction towards documenting and prosecuting to the extent of the law, instances of online violence. Government and civil society organization-led awareness raising campaigns on the impact of online violence, citizen’s digital rights and the available legal remedies when violations of these rights occur is one of the ways to reorient the average Nigerian on the subject matter,” she said in Abuja.

Other activists like Gregory Okere, a human rights lawyer in Abuja said “There is a need for more focused research on issues of women and online gender based violence, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where online gender based violence is a relatively new concept and viewed as something that is frivolous and not worth reporting to law enforcement. This research would be to provide literature and evidence to support future advocacy initiatives, inform mitigation measures and give insights into the full scale of the problem.”

Synergetic relationships between governments, civil society organisations and the private sector are increasingly seen as necessary towards improving general societal outcomes. A multi-sectorial approach to addressing online violence against women and girls is essential for the extensive mitigation of this rising phenomenon

“As much as everyone is connected online, democracy is not a spectator sport. We as Nigerian citizens cannot by six degrees shy away from the responsibilities of supporting others online. We as citizens need to be actively involved, not only in talking about these issues but also in ensuring we get the stories to the appropriate authorities that can take action and ensure justice is done. We need to support the media in ensuring that the story is amplified and can no longer be silenced,” Okere added.

In the frenzy, the online community needs to focus on the abuser and not the victim. A lot of social media anger is usually based on the victim and they need not be re-victimised. Most social media users discuss issues around the woman’s actions but not that of the man who did the act. When justice is not served, it sends a strong signal to others that public judgment, scrutiny and shame await you if you report your abuser.