The Evidence We Choose

 

By Florence Shadrack | Victory Kashibu | Sanyaolu Oluwatamilore

There was something about the photographs that stayed with us.

Not because they were difficult to find: because they were easy to find.

A woman's social media photograph. A man's carefully chosen portrait. An image taken in the middle of a violent encounter. All of them can appear in a news story within minutes, each seemingly there to help the audience understand what happened.

But sometimes, the most revealing part of a story is not what the photograph shows.

It is why that particular photograph was chosen.

That question followed us through the African Women in Media (AWiM) policy insight webinar, “Reframing Violence Against Women and Girls: From Harmful Narratives to Accountability and Action.”

What began as a conversation about reporting violence against women and girls gradually opened up something much harder to confront: the choices made after violence occurs can determine whether a woman is seen as a survivor, a suspect, a spectacle, or simply another piece of content.

Chioma Agwuegbo (Executive Director of TechHerNG), Rebecca Birungi (Communication Specialist with the Uganda Media Women's Association), and Queenter Mbori (Executive Director of the Association of Media Women in Kenya) approached the conversation from different points of practice—digital safety and technology, survivor-centred communication, women's safety in journalism, and institutional accountability.

But their contributions converged around one uncomfortable reality: the violence may have happened once, but the way it is told can make it happen again.

And sometimes, we do not recognise the second harm because it arrives disguised as journalism.

That is where our reflection begins.

When the platform changes, does the violence?

Before attending the webinar, we already understood that social media could influence how rape and violence-related cases are handled, both positively and negatively. What the conversation gave us was a deeper understanding of how existing violence changes when it enters digital spaces.

Chioma Agwuegbo made this particularly clear.

Gender-based violence is not new. 

Physical, psychological, financial and economic forms of violence existed long before social media. 

What has changed is the platform through which these harms are perpetrated and distributed.

The perpetrator may have changed the format. 

The harm has not necessarily changed.

Technology has simply given old forms of violence a faster and wider road to travel. 

This matters because it challenges the idea that online gender-based violence can be solved separately from the structures that enable violence offline. As Chioma explained, if we cannot solve violence offline, we cannot expect to solve it simply because it has moved online.

A woman who struggles to access justice from the police, courts or other institutions offline does not automatically find justice on the internet. 

Sometimes, she finds a larger audience for her pain. 

One post can bring thousands of strangers into a private experience. One photograph can be copied and redistributed. One comment can invite another wave of abuse. One tweet can change how an entire community perceives a survivor. Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, the Founder of Shades of Us, explained this using her fictional story, Just A Twitter Trend. 

Artificial intelligence adds another layer, creating new ways for harmful content to be generated, manipulated, and circulated.

The internet has made harm faster. It has made it wider. And in many cases, it has made containment much harder.

Chioma also pointed to the growing pushback against women's rights, autonomy, and agency. The demonisation of feminism and misogynistic narratives around women are not merely internet problems. They reflect attitudes that already exist within society. The digital space can amplify them. This is where the feminist dimension of the conversation became difficult to separate from the media question.

The issue is not only that women are attacked online. It is that patriarchal assumptions about women's bodies, sexuality, credibility and agency can follow them into digital spaces and reach far more people.

The platform changes. The power imbalance does not necessarily change with it.

Chioma's example from Nigeria made this more than a theoretical argument. 

She recalled a 2020 case involving a young woman who accused a prominent music artist of rape. When the media reported the allegation, photographs of the male artist dressed in a three-piece suit were used alongside a photograph of the woman in a bikini, reportedly taken from her Instagram page.

The photographs were not equivalent. 

The man was presented through an image associated with formality, status and respectability. The woman was presented through her body. 

And the public response quickly moved towards her appearance: What was she wearing? Why did she have such photographs online? What kind of woman was she? 

The allegation itself became secondary.

This is where media framing becomes more than an editorial decision. It can determine what the audience treats as evidence.

Her clothing becomes evidence.

Her sexuality becomes evidence. 

Her social media presence becomes evidence. 

Her behaviour becomes evidence. 

The question quietly changed from:

“What was done to her?” 

to:

“What kind of woman is she?”

That is not a neutral shift. It is one of the ways misogyny can enter reporting without appearing in the reporter's words. 

The image can do the blaming. 

The headline can do the blaming. 

The choice of detail can do the blaming. 

Women who report violence can find themselves placed on trial for their own behaviour while the conduct of the person accused of harming them becomes secondary.

This is why ethical reporting cannot simply mean getting the facts right. A story can contain factual information and still construct a harmful narrative.

Chioma gave another example from Nigeria in 2025. A young woman was involved in an incident on an airline that resulted in officials violently removing her from the plane. During the incident, her clothing was pulled up, and her breasts were exposed. 

When some media outlets reported the incident, photographs showing her exposed body were used as cover images. Her humiliation became the visual entry point into the story. But what exactly was the public being asked to look at? The violence committed against her? Or her exposed body?

She had already experienced violence. Then evidence of that violence was reproduced for public consumption.

An image can be authentic and still be exploitative. A detail can be factual and still be unnecessary. A story can be accurate and still cause secondary harm.

The question therefore cannot stop at: “Is this photograph real?” We have to ask: “Why does the audience need to see it?” Does it help establish accountability? Does it help the survivor obtain justice? Does it help the public understand what happened? Does it expose institutional failure? Or does it simply make the story more likely to attract clicks and reactions?

There is nothing ethical about reproducing a woman's exposed body simply because the image is available. Access to an image is not the same thing as justification for publishing it. The story does not end at publication. Sometimes, publication is where another wave of harm begins.

A survivor can move from the original incident into the news cycle and then into the comment section. Her photograph can be copied. Her old social media posts can be retrieved. Strangers can speculate about her character. People who have never met her can decide whether she is telling the truth. A private experience can become public commentary.

The journalist may eventually move on to another story. The audience may move on to another trend. But the survivor remains attached to the digital footprint. This is one of the ways technology changes the consequences of violence.

The harm may not be new. Its reach is.

And while mechanisms such as the right to be forgotten may exist in some legal frameworks, the internet is notoriously difficult to forget. A photograph can be saved before it is removed. A screenshot can outlive the original post. A story can continue circulating without the original publisher's control. So digital accountability cannot simply mean removing content after it has spread.

It also requires thinking about what should never have been published in the first place.

The survivor is not raw material.

Rebecca Birungi brought the conversation towards what survivor-centred reporting should actually look like in practice. For us, this was important because “survivor-centred” can easily become another phrase that sounds good without changing the reporting process.

Rebecca made it practical. The survivor should not simply be someone a journalist interviews and then leaves behind. She should have a degree of participation in how her experience is handled. Where will the interview take place? Is the location safe? Could someone interpret the meeting in a way that puts her at risk? What questions are being asked? Is there anything in the material that could demean her? Is there anything she would not be comfortable seeing published? If she does not want her face or voice recognised, what measures can protect her identity?

These are not minor editorial considerations. They determine whether the reporting process gives the survivor some agency or takes even more control away from her.

Rebecca's approach also challenges the idea of interviewing as interrogation.

The journalist needs information. But the survivor is not simply a source from whom information must be extracted. She is a person who has already experienced a loss of control. The reporting process should not reproduce that experience. That means creating room for her to pause. It means asking questions carefully. It means considering her physical and emotional safety. It means reviewing relevant notes or aspects of the story with her where appropriate and removing material that could demean or unnecessarily expose her. Most importantly, it means recognising that consent is not simply a box to tick before the interview.

Consent has to remain meaningful throughout the storytelling process.

What happens after consent?

A survivor may agree to an interview without being able to predict everything that happens after publication. She may not anticipate how an image will be received. She may not know that strangers will retrieve old photographs. She may not anticipate the comments. She may not know how widely the story can travel. That is why responsible storytelling has to consider the afterlife of the story.

Could the information expose her? Could the photograph be weaponised? Could a particular detail make her easier to identify? Could publication put her family, work or safety at risk? Could a story increase visibility without increasing protection? Could something that seems harmless to a journalist become deeply harmful when placed in front of thousands of strangers?

These questions need to be asked before publication, not after harm has occurred.

It also means journalists and content creators need to do the background work.

• Understand the correct terminology around sexual and gender-based violence.

• Understand how technology-facilitated abuse operates.

• Understand the relevant laws in the country where the case is being handled.

• Know what support mechanisms exist.

• And be able to communicate these complexities within newsrooms so that deadline pressure does not become an excuse for careless reporting.

Because a deadline is temporary. The consequences of publication may not be.

Queenter Mbori, Executive Director of the Association of Media Women in Kenya, expanded the conversation towards women's safety in journalism and institutional accountability. Her contribution reminded us that it is not enough to ask whether one journalist made the wrong decision. We also have to ask what the institution around that journalist permits, rewards or ignores.

Newsrooms decide which stories receive prominence. Editors determine headlines and images. Media organisations establish reporting standards. Institutions determine whether women journalists can work safely. Platforms influence what gets amplified. Governments establish laws and policies. Justice institutions determine whether survivors have meaningful avenues for redress.

Accountability therefore cannot rest entirely on individuals.

There has to be institutional accountability behind ethical storytelling. A newsroom can have a gender-sensitive policy that is never implemented. A platform can have reporting mechanisms that respond too slowly. A country can have laws protecting women that survivors struggle to access in practice. An organisation can publicly support women's rights while failing to protect women within its own structures.

This is why the conversation has to move from policy language to implementation.

The legal environment matters too. Such frameworks matter because responsible media coverage is stronger when it is connected to systems capable of responding to the violence being reported. The media cannot replace justice institutions. But it can expose where those institutions are failing. And that is an important responsibility.

Reframing violence against women and girls therefore requires changing where we place the gaze.

If a woman is assaulted, her clothing should not become an investigation. If she is sexually violated, her past relationships should not become the headline. If she is publicly humiliated, her exposed body should not become the visual hook. If an institution fails her, the story should not end with the image of her suffering.

The questions should move elsewhere.

• Who committed the violence?

• Who failed to intervene?

• What institution had a responsibility?

• What justice mechanism exists?

• Was it accessible?

• What social norms allowed the harm to be dismissed?

• What happens to the next woman who experiences the same thing?

This is the difference between reporting an incident and reporting the system around the incident.

It is also the difference between sensationalism and solution-based reporting. A sensational story can generate outrage. But outrage can disappear as quickly as the next trending topic arrives. Solution-based reporting asks what comes after the outrage. Where can a survivor seek help? What institution needs to respond? What law applies? What policy is failing? What needs to change? Who has the responsibility to make that change?

The story then becomes more than an account of what happened. It becomes an examination of why it happened, what allowed it to happen, and what must happen next. What are we actually trying to change? This question matters to us as people working within communication.

The purpose of telling stories about social problems cannot simply be to make people feel something.

The deeper question is: What is the communication trying to change?

If the intended outcome is only sympathy, the survivor's pain risks becoming emotional content. If the intended outcome is accountability, the story has to move beyond the pain and interrogate the conditions that produced it.

A story should not leave audiences with only: “This is terrible.”

It should give them something more useful: Why is this happening? Who is responsible? What has failed? What can be changed? What can I do differently? That is where communication becomes more than storytelling. It becomes part of narrative shift and social change.

At Shades of Us, this responsibility sits at the heart of why we tell stories.

We use stories to address socio-economic issues affecting Africa, Africans and people of African descent, to facilitate open and honest conversations that lead to introspection, analysis and perspective change. Our objectives include sparking conversations around human rights, roles and responsibilities, and creating safe spaces for survivors of abuse. 

That makes this conversation particularly relevant to us.

When we tell a story about violence against a woman or girl, we are not simply documenting an event. We are helping shape how an audience understands the woman, the violence, the perpetrator, the institution involved, and the society that produced the conditions for that violence.

So the responsibility is not simply to ask whether a story is publishable. We have to ask what our storytelling leaves behind.

If the audience remembers only the survivor's exposed body, have we challenged the violence or reproduced it? If they remember only what she was wearing, have we questioned the perpetrator's actions or reinforced victim-blaming? If they leave angry but do not understand which institution failed, what exactly has the story changed? If thousands of people share a story but the survivor is left more exposed, can we really call that impact?

This aligns with our organisation's broader approach to storytelling: using different platforms and forms of storytelling to generate discussion, challenge harmful norms and contribute to social change. Our work connects storytelling with gender equality, human rights, reduced inequalities, peace, justice and strong institutions. 

That means reframing violence against women and girls is not only about choosing softer words. It is about asking harder questions before, during and after publication. Whose voice are we amplifying? Whose dignity are we protecting? What behaviour are we challenging? What institution are we asking to account for its failure? What should change because this story was told?

These questions matter because storytelling can either reproduce the conditions we are trying to challenge or help people see those conditions differently.

Visibility is not the same as justice.

This is perhaps one of the strongest lessons that was reinforced for us from the webinar.

A case can become viral without becoming resolved. A survivor can receive public sympathy without receiving institutional support. A story can generate thousands of comments without producing a single meaningful change in the system responsible for the harm.

Visibility can create pressure. But visibility without protection, agency and accountability can create another form of vulnerability. That is why we do not need less reporting on violence against women and girls. We need better questions behind the reporting.

Not: What will make this story go viral?

But: What will help people understand the problem?

Not: What photograph will attract the most attention?

But: What image can communicate the issue without violating the person at its centre?

Not: How much of the survivor's private life can we reveal?

But: How much does the public actually need to know to understand the issue and demand accountability?

Not: How do we make people feel sorry for her?

But: How do we make people understand what needs to change?

We are part of the story too

The responsibility does not end with journalists. As consumers of digital content, we participate in these narratives every time we share, comment, quote, or circulate them. We can extend a harmful story. Or we can interrupt it.

Before sharing an image of a survivor, we can ask whether we would want our own vulnerability displayed in the same way. Before commenting, we can ask whether we are contributing to accountability or simply adding another judgement. Before believing a narrative about a woman, we can question why her clothing, sexuality or past is being offered to us as evidence.

Every share gives something another life online. Every comment can reinforce a narrative. Every click can reward a particular form of storytelling. Audiences can become distributors of secondary harm too. This means ethical storytelling is not only a newsroom responsibility. It is also a public responsibility.

The Evidence We Choose

Ultimately, the webinar reinforced our thought and process around what it means to tell stories of violence. The responsibility is not simply to tell the truth. It is to consider what happens to that truth once it enters the public space.

• Who gains power from the way it is framed?

• Who loses power?

• Who gets believed?

• Who gets blamed?

• Who gets protected?

• And who gets turned into content?

The media does not only tell us what happened. Through headlines, photographs, omissions and emphasis, it tells us what to notice. That power should be used carefully. Because a survivor should not have to surrender her dignity for society to understand that she was harmed. Her body should not become the evidence against her. Her trauma should not become our content. Her story should not become another place where she loses control. And her visibility should not come at the cost of her safety.

The goal of storytelling should not simply be to make violence visible. It should be to make responsibility visible too.