Africa: Meet the Activists Working to End Digital Violence Against Women and Girls

November 25 marks the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence — a civil society-led initiative calling for action to ensure that every woman and girl can live a life free from violence.

The 2025 theme of “UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls” addresses one of the fastest-growing forms of abuse — tech-facilitated gender-based violence. Studies show that up to 58 per cent of women experience online violence, and that violence that begins online can often lead to violence in real-life. Online violence can include image-based abuse or non-consensual sharing of intimate images; cyberbullying, trolling and online threats; doxxing; online stalking or surveillance; online grooming and sexual exploitation, to name a few. Often, violence that begins online can shift or continue offline, and vice versa. The physical and psychological impacts are devastating for individuals, but online violence can also have a silencing effect that robs our societies and communities of women’s contributions in politics, journalism, civil society and beyond.

Below, we highlight some of the advocates working with Spotlight Initiative to make online spaces safer for women and girls everywhere.

CECILIA SUÁREZ

Actress and UN Global Advocate for Spotlight Initiative

Actress Cecilia Suárez has championed the rights of women and girls throughout her film and television career as well as through her work as a UN Global Advocate for Spotlight Initiative. During the Eightieth UN General Assembly (UNGA 80), she spoke about the sharp rise in online violence and called for companies and governments to ensure accountability online.

“The Internet has become a training ground for hate against women and machismo,” said Ms. Suárez. “Three hundred million childhoods have been affected by childhood sexual exploitation and harassment [online] just this year. There is exponential growth in anti-women’s rights groups as well as new technological methods that reinforce misogynistic ways of thinking. This is why we desperately need a legal framework to regulate the internet in all its forms.”

AMANDA NGUYỄN

Astronaut, activist and Founder of Rise

Amanda Nguyễn founded Rise in 2014 with the goal of legislating access to care and justice for sexual violence survivors. A survivor herself, Ms. Nguyễn has helped pass 88 laws and a UN resolution that guarantee the rights of survivors. However, she says she’s never experienced more threats than when she finally realized her dream of going to space.

“After a decade of advocating online, I’ve gotten my fair share of trolls, but I have never seen the vitriol I have since sharing my story plus announcing that I’m going to space,” said Ms. Nguyễn during a Spotlight Initiative panel discussion at the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) Forum in Cape Town last year. “This combination of succeeding in a male-dominated area while also talking about vulnerability and gender-based violence has fuelled a very interesting type of trolling.”

In spite of pushback, Ms. Nguyễn remains a committed advocate for both sexual violence survivors and women and girls in science, technology, engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

SINEAD BOVELL

Futurist and Founder of WAYE

Sinead Bovell is a futurist working at the intersection of technology and ethics. In 2024, she hosted a Spotlight Initiative panel discussion during the SVRI Forum in Cape Town that addressed the gendered nature of technology. “Technology is far from neutral,” she said. “Gender-based violence, one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world, has extended to online spaces where it’s amplified and evolving in overt and covert ways.” She continues to advocate for equal access to education and digital tools. “From non-consensual deepfake images, to medical AI systems trained on historical datasets that excluded women entirely, to the disproportionate abuse women face in online spaces, the challenges are vast. But so too are the solutions,” says Ms. Bovell.

“Gender-based violence, in all its forms, is preventable. It’s not a lack of solutions we face but the will and conviction to choose them.”

ULDOUZ WALLACE

Actress, writer, producer and influencer

When Uldouz Wallace had her private photos leaked without her consent during the 2014 iCloud hack, she realized just how little protection there is for women and girls online. “When it comes to the digital realm, abuse protections are pretty much non-existent,” Ms. Wallace told the audience during a Spotlight Initiative UNGA 80 panel discussion. She set out to change that, establishing Foundation Ra to support victims of image-based abuse and launching the Protect Act, which seeks to stop non-consensual image sharing before it happens. “We need laws like the Protect Act to block non-consensual content being uploaded by demanding age verification and consent from the uploaders on adult sites. Most platforms already have this technology and could easily implement it,” Ms. Uldouz says. “Why are laws protecting women and girls only after the fact, [when] they have already been exploited and lost all rights to their bodily autonomy, dignity and been profited from?”

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