It's time to address rising cases of online gender-based violence

Online abuse is fuelling Kenya’s gender-based violence crisis. [File Courtesy]

It may come as a surprise to many that the Kenyan government made a promise on the international stage to completely eradicate violence against women and girls by 2026. The surprise, naturally, stems from what is a steadily rising crisis of gender-based violence as Kenyan news continues to report new incidences of femicide with regularity. Femicide itself is the apex of this gender-based harm, and there are myriad other ways that women and other minorities are exposed to abuse.

What we are witnessing now, aside from the traditional forms of violence known to us, is the rise of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). Defined as violence that is “committed, assisted, aggravated or amplified” through digital technologies, TFGBV includes online harassment, cyberstalking, doxxing, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, and increasingly, the use of artificial intelligence to generate sexualised content without consent.

TFGBV is, in some sense, an extension of the offline violence that we witness, made worse by the scope of reach and the possibility of anonymity. A single act of harassment can be shared thousands of times, drawing in new perpetrators and exposing survivors to repeated harm. During seasons of heavy politicking, such as now, we often see this violence focused on female politicians and political aspirants. More than any other form of abuse, this violence is normalised because many rationalise that it is targeted at the political class, people who are openly hated due to the evil that they mete out on Kenyans.

However, a closer look should reveal that reactionary commentary against politicians takes on a different tone based on their gender. Whilst male politicians are analysed on the merit of their thoughts and actions, women politicians have every gaffe blamed on their gender and are seen as being inferior and poor at their jobs simply because they are women. Should they make the mistake of also being attractive, the targeted hate also takes on a sexualised tone, which feels like a metaphorical public undressing to anyone who comes across such content online.

It is easy to dismiss TFGBV as being ‘just online’ and to argue that nothing that happens online is actually real. This is, however, far from the truth. A recent documentary released by Louis Theroux revealed how online discussions bleed into the offline world. While women are being violated and pushed out of online spaces, men are imbibing the patriarchal ideas that are shared online and reinforcing these ideas with the women around them. The most pervasive of these ideas, naturally, is that women are an easy target, as every day we all sit on the Internet and watch women being insulted and assaulted with nary a consequence for the perpetrators. 

The emergence of AI has intensified the crisis as deepfake technology now allows perpetrators to create hyper-realistic pornographic images and videos of women without their consent. These images are then disseminated widely, much to the entertainment of the menfolk on the Internet. In February, the social media app X had to take urgent action as its in-built AI, Grok, was primarily being used by men to create nude images of women using the app. An innocent post by a woman would be flooded with comments from men commanding the AI to undress them. 

It is difficult to hope that Kenya will achieve its dreams of a nation free of GBV when the technology moves much faster than it can be governed. Nobody could have foretold, for instance, that there would be a sudden surge in the use of AI to violate women. If anything, we are still trying to understand what AI really is. But, even with this easy out for our government, it is important that the failings of the State also be rectified if violence is to be reduced. The recently passed Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, for example, came at a time when it would be used not to protect those who face harm online, but instead to silence dissent against the government. It would appear that we have the tools to protect us, but we are using them for nefarious reasons.

Equally as important as fixes in the legal regime is cultural change. On our part, we must begin to call out violence in online spaces, and especially that which is viewed as being justified because it targets women whom we hate.

Ms Njahira is an international lawyer