The sixth edition of DataFest Africa brought together digital rights advocates, policymakers, civic technology innovators and feminist leaders across Africa to Kampala, Uganda, under the theme “Reclaiming our Data Futures.” For CcHUB, represented by Yvonne Eweka – Senior Program Manager for Election and Governance, this year’s conference was an opportunity to address a pressing challenge: the weaponization of technology against women in political spaces.
As Africa’s digital landscape expands, technology increasingly shapes governance, innovation, and democratic participation. However, as emphasized during the opening ceremony, data is not neutral—it reflects hierarchies rooted in colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism. For women seeking political office across the continent, this reality manifests as tech-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), a phenomenon that threatens to reverse hard-won gains in women’s political representation.
CcHUB’s workshop, “Platform Accountability: A Critical Analysis of Platform Influence on Tech-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Elections in Africa,” examined how electoral manipulation and online violence are systematically deployed to silence women’s voices in democracy. This discussion is crucial because without addressing these digital barriers, efforts to advance women’s political participation will remain incomplete.
Understanding the Landscape: Key Insights from Speakers
Yvonne Eweka opened the discussion by connecting digital violence to broader inequality in public spaces. She presented alarming trends including non-consensual sharing of intimate images and AI-generated content designed to harm women politicians. Drawing from CcHUB’s research paper “Breaking Barrier: Advancing Women Participation in Politics in Africa,” Yvonne outlined systemic challenges—patriarchy, educational barriers, and restrictive societal expectations—that compound digital violence. Her policy recommendations were comprehensive: implement gender quotas, reform electoral systems to allocate more seats for women, strengthen political parties’ commitment to female candidates, and combat online violence through legal safeguards. Additionally, she emphasized the need for capacity building in cybersecurity and improving reporting mechanisms for survivors. While highlighting a troubling data gap—Uganda’s 2024 crime report clusters technology-facilitated violence under general cybercrime, making targeted advocacy difficult.
Angela Minayo from ARTICLE 19 shifted focus to platform responsibility, arguing that social media companies actively contribute to TFGBV through design choices. Slow response times to complaints—sometimes taking months—combined with inadequate content moderation policies create environments where harmful content goes viral across multiple platforms before authorities can intervene. Angela raised fundamental questions about whether complaint mechanisms are designed with women’s safety in mind, pointing to systemic failures in access to remedy. According to her, “Platforms’ designs raise significant challenges for TFGBV survivors in reporting online attacks. Platforms complaints mechanisms are ineffective in addressing TFGBV complaints leading to more trauma for victims as content continues to be shared across platforms”
David Iribagiza from WOUGNET examined the intersection of political micro-targeting and gender disinformation, highlighting how opaque online campaign practices damage female candidates’ reputations. Referencing Honorable Mclean Kamusime experiences, Davidiza warned that AI tools enable perpetrators to create deepfakes that discredit women politicians, while social media algorithms prioritize sensationalism over principles. This creates an ecosystem where gender disinformation flourishes unchecked. “Digital tools can amplify women’s political voices but only if women are part of designing, using, & governing them. Platform accountability is very essential”
Brenda Namata from Pollicy addressed documentation challenges, noting that many women in politics lack awareness about technological abuses and reporting mechanisms. Platform unresponsiveness discourages reporting, while technology-enabled documentation often misses the human-centric perspective needed to identify sexist abuse. The absence of government structures for reporting TFGBV results in minimal documentation and low awareness, pushing many women toward self-censorship or platform deactivation rather than seeking justice. Brenda emphasized that TFGBV intensifies during elections, with evolving tactics requiring evidence-based engagement with platforms and authorities. According to her, her organization is building capacity for women in politics and creating consolidated networks of service providers to fill gaps when platforms fail.
Khadijah El-Usman from Paradigm Initiative offered a structural critique, comparing social media platforms to states with immense power but without democratic accountability or justice guarantees. Khadijah argued that behavioral change requires three elements: design, supportive policies, and enforcement. Additionally, monetization incentives reward abusive content through impressions regardless of truthfulness, creating financial motivation for TFGBV. On the policy side, Khadijah highlighted that “platforms and regulators can reduce the profitability and visibility of harmful behaviour by removing monetisation pathways for influencers and accounts that promote disinformation, targeted harassment, and TFGBV. De-incentivising abuse is as important as punishing it.. Platform accountability is possible when incentives are aligned through design, policy, and enforcement. While it may feel late to influence foundational platform design, especially as many platforms did not anticipate their current scale or sociopolitical influence, future design decisions can and must integrate safety safeguards and user-protection principles.
She also posits that election periods have consistently shown the most coordinated government response to online harms. During these windows, authorities often align priorities across consumer protection, data protection, telecommunications regulation, and law enforcement, and platforms activate heightened safety protocols. This coordinated approach should not remain limited to election cycles. Instead, it should serve as a model for year-round enforcement, with clear penalties, consistent inter-agency collaboration, and proactive engagement with civil society and survivors to ensure safe online participation for all, particularly women and marginalized voices.”
Judy Karioko from IREX challenged the perception that TFGBV is “just another woman’s issue,” arguing that framing minimizes its gravity and impact on entire communities. Judy advocated for engaging local commercial tech sectors and implementing “safety by design” curricula that prioritize user needs and platform accountability. Her recommendations included deploying risk mitigation measures, involving potential users in design processes, and ensuring reporting mechanisms connect users to support systems and duty bearers. She stressed that platforms, governments, and the public all have roles—platforms must be accountable, governments must enforce laws, and citizens need digital literacy.
Honorable Mclean Kamusime, the Mayor of Kabare grounded the discussion in local realities— sharing her lived experience as a female politician in Uganda, emphasizing that advocacy must begin with what communities know. Capacity building and education for women in villages using Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok are critical. “People need to recognize violations and know where to report them. Clear policies with known punishments for online abuse—as universally understood as penalties for destroying political campaign posters—are essential.” The Mayor called on politicians and local leaders to actively address online violence in their public speeches to raise community awareness in order to encourage more women to participate in politics and the digital world.
The Pathway Forward: A Collective Responsibility
The workshop revealed a disturbing pattern: the silence forced upon women politicians by inadequate support systems creates an exodus from politics that reinforces patriarchal norms. As the speaker noted, TFGBV is already manifesting in elections across Africa, with female candidates perceived as less capable than male counterparts.
The solution requires coordinated action. Pre- and post-election monitoring mechanisms must be established. Coalitions among feminist actors and women human rights defenders need strengthening. The African Union must redefine accountability through an afro-feminist lens that understands intersectional abuse and addresses the impunity driving harm. African countries must move beyond drafting standards to actual adoption, ratification, and implementation.
The path forward demands behavioral change through policy and enforcement, protective mechanisms embedded in platform design, capacity building for women at all levels, and leveraging regional bodies to create accountability frameworks suited to African realities. Only by treating TFGBV as everyone’s problem—not just a women’s issue—can Africa truly reclaim its data futures and create digital spaces where women’s political participation can flourish safely and equitably.