By Solomon Gumah
Tamale, Oct 13, GNA – Miss Fatahia Musah, the Communication Lead for the Girls Advisory Council, has underscored the need for urgent legal and policy reforms, to address the rising cases of technology-facilitated Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the country.
She made the call at a day’s engagement workshop at Tamale to raise awareness and build the capacity of young people, community leaders, and male allies to address issues of online harassment, cyberbullying, and other forms of digital abuses that negatively affected women and girls.
Ms Musah explained that the event was also to expose participants to essential digital safety skills and encourage them to join a growing network of youth champions, committed to promoting safer digital spaces.
The engagement workshop, organised by the Girls Advisory Council in partnership with the Brain Builders Youth Initiative, Rising Child Foundation, and Disability Not a Barrier Initiative, sought to create greater awareness on technology-facilitated GBV.
It brought together various youth groups including persons with disabilities, community leaders, media practitioners, and other stakeholders within the youth development space.
Participants also reviewed a research report conducted by Norsaac under its Power to Youth Programme, on technology-facilitated GBV in Ghana.
The report explored the prevalence, nature, and policy gaps surrounding technology-facilitated GBV and highlighted how the internet and other digital technologies were increasingly being misused to harass, intimidate, and violate the rights of women and girls.
Presenting the report, Mr Abdullah Habib Mohammed, a Youth and Gender Activist at Norsaac, described technology-facilitated GBV as an emerging threat to women’s digital safety and rights.
The report revealed that acts such as online stalking, cyberbullying, image-based abuse, non-consensual sharing of sexual images, persistent digital surveillance by intimate partners, and online sexual harassment, were becoming increasingly common, especially against young women and girls.
It noted that while Ghana’s Domestic Violence Act and Cybersecurity Act provided some protection, the laws did not explicitly address online GBV, leaving victims without adequate legal recourse.
It said “Although Ghana has made strides in enacting cyber-related laws, there remains significant gaps in the capacity of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute technology-facilitated abuse. There is also a lack of trained personnel and forensic expertise to track perpetrators.”
The study further found that digital intimate partner violence, especially among young people, was pervasive and often involved the use of spyware, fake accounts, and constant monitoring of partners’ social media and location data.
Again, online sexual harassment, had become one of the most disturbing forms of the issues often taking the form of unsolicited sexual messages, explicit imagery, blackmail, and threats, he said.
While acknowledging that the internet provided a platform for empowerment and advocacy, the report cautioned that it had also become a breeding ground for new forms of digital abuse.
It therefore called for comprehensive legal reforms to explicitly recognise and criminalise technology-facilitated GBV and urged policymakers to ensure that the Cybersecurity and Domestic Violence Acts respectively, and other related laws included provisions for digital safety and justice.
The report also recommended capacity building for police, prosecutors, and judges to effectively handle such cases, and the establishment of dedicated cybercrime units focused on technology-related gender violence.
It further underscored the need for public education and digital literacy programmes especially in schools, to empower young people to protect themselves online.
The study encouraged the involvement of traditional and religious leaders in raising awareness and challenging social norms that normalized online harassment.
It said “Public awareness and digital literacy are critical tools for reducing incidences of technology-facilitated abuse. Building a culture of accountability and respect in online spaces must begin with education and community engagement.”
Mr Murtala Issah, a journalist with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, also advised participants to be cautious about their digital activities saying, “Don’t share your nudes with your partner in the digital space; it is a threat to your emotional security.”
Mr Issahaku Abdul-Latif, the Northern Regional Coordinator of Activista Ghana, who spoke on positive masculinity, emphasised need for men to complement and support women rather than resort to emotional blackmail.
Other participants called for collective and deliberate efforts to combat technology-facilitated gender-based violence and urged young people to be cautious in their online engagements.
GNA
Edited by Eric K. Amoh/ Christabel Addo