he Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion this week launched a campaign to combat technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) under the theme “My Digital Space Should Be Safe”. ALSO READ: Rwanda moves to combat tech-facilitated GBV This comes a few months after news of a conviction in the US of two brothers who targeted a 17-year-old schoolboy in a sextortion scam that led to him ending his life. The two convicts had befriended their victim through Instagram disguised as a girl his age and then flirted with him and convinced him to send them explicit images that they would later use to blackmail him for hundreds of dollars. He feared they would share the photos online with his friends if he didn’t comply, and he did send them as much money as he could. He later committed suicide. Initial police reports indicated that the brothers targeted more than 100 other potential victims. The unfortunate fact is that this is more common that it appears in the media, and women and girls are disproportionately affected, not just by online sextortion but also other forms of technology-facilitated violence. According to UN Women, 85 percent of women worldwide have either experienced or witnessed digital harassment. Another 2023 study conducted in Rwanda revealed that one in three women faced online abuse within the past year. The campaign to fight this vice is overdue. Much harm has been done already, but it is not too late. It is our collective responsibility to fight gender-based violence, even the one happening online. We need to inform ourselves about it and the laws that punish it in order to be prepared in case we come across it. We can also intervene by calling it out, defending a vulnerable person, as well as giving the affected people the support they need. We can also help them report it to the authorities. There is much we can do, but it all starts from the willingness to keep everyone safe.
