Civil society organisations push for action to curb growing online gender abuse

Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Media Women's Association (Tamwa) and Tech & Media Convergence (TMC) have called on the government to efficiently and effectively supervise the execution of the Personal Data Protection Act to tame incidents of online gender abuse.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) believe that strengthened supervision of the Personal Data Protection Act would build a nation that respects humanity, tradition, and individual citizens’ discipline.

Reading the CSO’s joint press conference, Tamwa executive director, Dr Rose Reuben, said the Personal Data Protection Act endorsed recently is expected to provide lasting solutions to some incidents of humiliation and violence against women.

“Addressing online abuse requires collective strategies between the community and the government, which is obliged to install safe systems. Other responsible stakeholders are communications companies, faith-based organisations, and media outlets,” he said.

During a press conference held at the side-line of the Annual General Meeting (AGM), Dr Reuben said that Tanzania’s state of communications report reveals an increase in smartphone distribution from 31 percent in December 2023 to 32.4 percent in March 2024.  

However, she said the increase was supposed to go hand in hand with the provision of education on the need for appropriate safety for users, saying the recent trend increases the risks of escalated dissemination of content with negative perspectives.

“Recently, we have witnessed women politicians, traders, musicians, actresses, entrepreneurs, and girls' children sexually abused on online platforms. The trend is drastically growing at an alarming rate,” she said, noting that women journalists are not spared. Furthermore, she said a recent report issued by Tamwa and its stakeholders shows that over 70 percent of women leaders abandoned using social media after being abused online.

According to her, the incidents violate basic human rights, damage people’s reputations, expose them to insecurity, and prohibit women from actively participating in conversations related to academic, and social interactions.

“Sometimes, the perpetrators of these incidents are fellow women and friends. The situation worsens when online platforms owned by media organisations are implicated,” she said.

“Social media abuse against women inflicts fear on the women who decide to remain quiet and discourage others from freely expressing themselves, hence failing to share their beliefs,” she added.

She said the two organisations would like to caution the country that ahead of future elections, these incidents should be tamed because they not only affect women’s physical health, but also their mental health and abilities to grab available opportunities in politics, trade, and academics.

Dr Reuben said findings of a study conducted by TMC revealed that 79 percent of women politicians suffered different forms of online abuse, noting that 70 percent of them completely abandoned using social media.

She said CSOs call on social media companies to use safe systems that would control different forms of humiliation, and that technology companies should follow up and reduce risks.