Who Gets to Be Safe Online?

Shades of Us Interns at the National Policy Dialogue on Rights, Justice and Digital Safety Convened by TechHER

By Ramatu Ada Ochekliye

Shades of Us attended the National Policy Dialogue on Rights, Justice and Digital Safety, hosted by TechHer with support from Luminate on July 30, 2026, in Abuja, Nigeria. The dialogue brought together government institutions, civil society organisations, human rights advocates, technology stakeholders and survivors to examine technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), launch new research and push for stronger policy, justice and accountability.

The very first question at the dialogue was deceptively simple: Is the internet safe for all? The second question was more personal: Am I making it safe for others online?

The conversation was about what happens to people when violence follows people – in this case, women and girls – from their screens into their homes, workplaces, communities and everyday lives.

Peter Akinnusi, the Head of Programs at TechHer, described the dialogue as the culmination of a journey that began four to five years ago. “TechHer has a passion for people,” he said, reflecting on the organisation's work to make technology more accessible and safer for women and girls.

He posed a question that I think should stay with all of us: Who is meant to be society's watchdog? His answer was not limited to government, technology companies, or civil society. “Harm that is not being perpetrated on you could just be five or six points away from you,” he said.

The implication is that digital violence is not an isolated problem affecting an abstract group of people. And I agree. A woman being doxxed, a queer person being targeted, a person with a disability being harassed, or an intimate image being distributed without consent can expose weaknesses in systems that eventually affect everyone.

“Who gets to be safe online? Ideally, everyone.”

That ideal, however, remains far from reality.

If anything, TFGBV is not an exceptional experience.

Presenting the findings of TechHer's research, Gbemisola Adegbowale, Women’s Digital Rights and Safety Officer at TechHer, described “TFGBV is a reflection of physical violence.”

The research drew on 373 eligible survey participants, 58 focus group discussion participants and 11 key informant interviews. Its findings showed that online violence is persistent rather than exceptional. Among the respondents, 90.5 percent of queer women reported experiencing TFGBV, while 69.7 percent of women with disabilities reported experiencing it. These figures demonstrate how existing inequalities shape digital experiences. Digital spaces do not exist outside society. They inherit its prejudices, reproduce its exclusions and can amplify them at scale.

“Digital participation comes at an unequal cost,” Gbemisola said.

For women and girls who already face discrimination, participating online can mean choosing between visibility and safety. The consequences extend well beyond the screen. Respondents reported anxiety arising from cyber harassment and bullying, while TFGBV created physical, economic, social and psychological consequences.

The research also found that survivors often pay twice: first through the violence itself, and then through the cost of protecting themselves from further harm. Some survivors reportedly spent as much as ₦100,000 after being doxxed to protect themselves. In a country where millions of people are struggling with the rising cost of living, the economic dimension of digital violence becomes difficult to ignore.

The research also raised concerns about reporting mechanisms. Survivors frequently do not receive meaningful solutions or support after reporting abuse. Platform moderation can fail to account for local contexts, languages and community realities. 

And emerging technologies are creating new avenues for abuse. Respondents reported cases in which their images were used to generate non-consensual sexualised images through artificial intelligence tools. The result is a digital environment where technology can expand both the reach and permanence of violence.

A staying thought is that disability and queer communities cannot be an afterthought when we talk about online violence.

Grace Jerry, Executive Director of Inclusive Friends, emphasised that TFGBV is also deeply present within the disability community. “This conversation is important because it looks at how TFGBV affects women and girls, including those with disabilities.” She noted that many people with disabilities do not recognise some forms of abuse as TFGBV. Ableist language and other forms of discrimination can become part of the violence experienced online.

Award-winning poet Pélémo Ava Nyajo similarly argued that society must stop separating online violence from the discrimination that people already experience offline. “People like to make the distinction between the physical space and what happens online.”

But the distinction is increasingly difficult to sustain. People who face prejudice because of their gender, sexuality, disability, appearance or other characteristics can carry those vulnerabilities into digital spaces. Pelemo recalled how men had used platforms such as 2Go to groom girls, including girls with disabilities who struggled with societal standards of beauty. The solution, she argued, must “...include vulnerable communities from the get-go on addressing TFGBV.” That means designing digital safety interventions with, rather than simply for, the people most affected.

I particularly agreed with the clear idea that technology companies cannot (and should not) outsource responsibility.

The goodwill messages reinforced another recurring theme: digital safety is a shared responsibility.

Dayo Olaide, Advisory Board Chairman of TechHer, commended the intentionality with which TechHer has built its community, while making clear that the organisation does not intend to become the only watchdog. “The goal is not to make TechHer the only watchdog. We all must contribute our bit.”

Tare Wills, representing Luminate, went further, pointing to the role of technology companies themselves. “The tech spaces reveal that technology has the power to marginalize people.” She also pointed to the complicity of technology platforms in TFGBV and called for collective action to ensure that human rights remain protected in digital environments.

For many participants, the question was therefore not simply whether users should behave better online. It was whether the companies designing, owning and profiting from these spaces are doing enough to protect the people who use them.

Where is the Nigerian framework for TFGBV?

The panel discussion exposed a significant policy gap.

Pwadumdi Okoh of the National Human Rights Commission argued that “Tech companies should have been in this conversation.” She explained that the business and human rights framework rests on the principle that governments have a duty to protect human rights, while businesses have a responsibility to understand and respect those rights.

“When you respect human rights, you are building for business sustainability.”

While this was an important ask, I think it is idealistic. Technology companies respond to people and governments who can hold them accountable and make them pay consequences for the failure to protect citizens. Nigeria is not one of those countries tech companies – big or otherwise – respect. 

The National Human Rights Commission can receive complaints relating to human rights violations and address systemic discrimination. The Commission has also been involved in advancing Nigeria's National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights, which seeks to strengthen human rights compliance by businesses.

But the existence of institutions does not automatically guarantee justice.

Abdullahi Abubakar of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) noted that Nigeria has policies governing technology, but many forms of TFGBV are not clearly defined as offences under existing law. “For something to be a crime in Nigeria, it has to be defined by the law and have an appropriate punishment so prescribed.”

He called for a framework that clearly defines the boundaries of TFGBV within the Nigerian context. That contextualisation matters. Nigeria cannot simply import definitions, reporting mechanisms and moderation standards developed elsewhere and assume they will adequately address local realities. Language, culture, community structures, legal institutions, internet access, political conditions and the experiences of marginalised groups all shape how digital violence manifests in Nigeria.

What does NITDA have to do with digital safety?

NITDA's role extends beyond technology development. Its Digital Literacy and Capacity Development department is responsible for promoting digital literacy and skills, supporting digital transformation, developing partnerships, and advising policymakers on digital literacy and skills policies and curricula. Its mandate also includes promoting wholesome practices in the online environment.

This makes NITDA particularly relevant to the question of digital safety. 

The agency's National Digital Literacy Framework recognises that Nigerians do not have equal levels of digital knowledge and skills and is designed to build digital competence across different groups.

According to Abdullahi, NITDA is also working with the National Universities Commission to integrate digital literacy and skills into university education, while its partnership with the National Youth Service Corps uses corps members as digital literacy champions in communities. These programmes provide an opportunity to move beyond digital literacy as simply the ability to use technology.

Digital literacy however should also include digital rights, consent, privacy, online harassment, reporting mechanisms, misinformation, AI-generated abuse and the responsibilities that come with participating in digital spaces.

Knowing how to create an account is not enough. Young Nigerians need to know what it means to participate safely, recognise abuse and protect themselves and others.

What are we teaching children about TFGBV?

One question from the dialogue asked what is being done to ensure that young children understand TFGBV. This cannot begin when a child becomes an adult or when a survivor has already experienced harm. Children are entering digital spaces earlier, and digital safety education therefore needs to evolve alongside their access to technology.

Nigeria's existing digital literacy efforts provide an entry point. NITDA’s Abdullahi shared that the agency has been working with education-sector institutions, including the Universal Basic Education Commission and the National Senior Secondary Education Commission, to strengthen digital skills among teachers.

But the next step should be to make safety part of that conversation. Children should learn, in age-appropriate ways, about consent, privacy, respectful online behaviour, manipulation, grooming, image-based abuse, cyberbullying, reporting and when to seek help. The objective should not be to frighten children away from technology. It should be to equip them to use technology with knowledge, agency and responsibility.

Government must also be held accountable. And it begs to be emphasized.

What happens when the government itself becomes a threat to digital rights and safety?

Nigeria has invested in surveillance technologies and expanded its digital governance infrastructure. This creates legitimate questions about safeguards, oversight, and the potential misuse of technology.

Who can access citizens' data? Under what circumstances? What independent oversight exists? What happens when surveillance technologies are abused? And what happens when government threatens to restrict or ban social media platforms?

Digital safety cannot mean protecting citizens only from other citizens. It must also mean protecting citizens from the misuse of institutional power. The state has a responsibility to protect human rights, including in digital environments. That responsibility should apply even when the threat comes from government institutions themselves.

CEDAW And The Unfinished Work Of Protecting Women

The discussion also connects directly to Nigeria's long-standing failure to fully domesticate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Nigeria ratified CEDAW in 1985, but the Convention has historically not been incorporated into Nigerian domestic law in the manner required under Section 12 of the Constitution. The CEDAW Committee has repeatedly called on Nigeria to complete the domestication process so that the Convention becomes part of the country's legal framework and is fully justiciable and enforceable in Nigerian courts.

The issue remains relevant today.

CEDAW provides a broader framework for eliminating discrimination against women. Domestication would strengthen the legal and institutional basis for addressing discrimination and violence against women, including emerging forms of harm that existing laws may not adequately anticipate.

Nigeria's most recent CEDAW-related processes also show that the issue remains unfinished. In 2025, the United Nations CEDAW Committee conducted an inquiry concerning Nigeria under Article 8 of the Optional Protocol, while renewed recommendations have continued to call for efforts to domesticate CEDAW.

For TFGBV, this matters because digital violence does not exist in a legal vacuum. It is part of a continuum of discrimination and violence against women and girls. The challenge is to ensure that Nigeria's laws evolve alongside the ways violence evolves.

Justice Must Become Accessible

Sophia Ariene Ejeh of the Ministry of Justice emphasised the importance of evidence-based lawmaking. “Laws cannot stand on their own if we do not have research and evidence to back them.” She noted that gender-based violence must be addressed holistically and that a joint task force headed by the cybercrimes unit is working on TFGBV-related issues. She also pointed to the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act as covering aspects of gender-based violence, while acknowledging that TFGBV was not developed as a distinct issue when many existing legal frameworks were created.

Fear remains a major barrier to reporting.

So does the justice system itself. “Some judges do not understand the intricacies of GBV, talk more of TFGBV.”

The Ministry, she said, would train judges.

This is critical because access to justice is not simply about having a law. Survivors need police officers who understand digital evidence, prosecutors who understand technology-facilitated abuse, judges who understand how online violence works and institutions that survivors can trust.

The Cost Of Waiting

TechHer's work demonstrates why survivor support cannot wait for perfect legislation. The organisation's KURAM platform provides a channel for reporting technology-facilitated violence and connecting survivors with legal support. KURAM means “Keep Me Safe” in Tiv and is part of TechHer's work to address violence against women and girls online.

TechHer has also built a Volunteer Lawyer Network to expand access to legal support for survivors of online gender-based violence.

The organisation's broader survivor-support work has produced concrete outcomes. In one case highlighted by TechHer Executive Director Chioma Agwuegbo in an interview, emergency funding helped an organisation gather evidence that contributed to the conviction of two men who sexually abused a seven-year-old boy.

These interventions demonstrate an important point: sometimes the difference between a survivor being ignored and receiving justice is not an elaborate new institution. It is whether someone has the resources, expertise, and determination to act.

Five Priorities For A Safer Digital Nigeria

TechHer's research identified five priorities for action: coordinate national action, redesign safety around survivors, make justice accessible, invest in community protection, and prepare for the future of digital harm.

These priorities provide a useful starting point.

Government must strengthen the legal and policy framework.

Technology companies must take responsibility for the environments they create and profit from.

Justice institutions must develop the capacity to understand technology-facilitated violence.

Civil society must continue building community-level protection and survivor support.

And Nigerians themselves must recognise that digital safety is not somebody else's responsibility.

As Dayo Olaide put it: “Everyone of us has the responsibility to address TFGBV.” That responsibility, however, must not become an excuse for platforms and institutions to avoid theirs.

Similar to our Mobile Cinema Approach, the screening of TechHer's film, Unmuted: Can You Hear Me?, brought the discussion back to lived experience, following the stories of three women, Bolanle, Ese and Habiba. Their stories reinforced what the research had already demonstrated: behind every statistic is a person whose life can be changed by what happens online.

The National Policy Dialogue ultimately challenged the idea that digital safety is merely a technology problem.

It is a human rights issue.

It is a justice issue.

It is a gender equality issue.

It is an economic issue.

It is a disability rights issue.

And increasingly, it is an issue of governance.

Technology may create new ways to perpetrate harm. But institutions determine whether that harm is addressed or allowed to persist. The question, therefore, is no longer simply whether the internet is safe. The more important question is what are we willing to change to make it safe?

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question remains the one posed at the beginning of the dialogue:

Am I making it safe for others online?