Gender activists have called for policies that protect women in politics from abuse in online spaces.
Due to the treatment they receive online, some women shy away from online platforms.
This was said by Gender and Media Connect national director, Patience Zirima, at a Women Institute for Leadership Development (WILD) mocktail to commemorate International Women’s Day (IDW) 2023.
This year’s commemorations were held under the theme, “DigitAll, Innovation and technology for gender equality”.
“Because a lot of women can become very vulnerable when they go out there, they are in the public space and just the nature of society where we have people who don’t fully accept that women can take up the spaces, there is a lot of trolling women in politics, name-calling, shaming, people talking about very personal issues, your body, they talk very mean things like you don’t bath you are like this, you are not married and this is a big issue for women in politics,” said Zirima.
“You find that a lot of women, especially in politics, will shy away from using a lot of the platforms that can be able to help them in their careers because they think of the violence that I have indicated.”
Zirima said while men feel that they have enough support and know how to respond and defend themselves online, women don’t have enough support.
“Women sometimes don’t have the same support or sometimes the violence is so personal against women that you find that women then shy away,” she said.
“When you have for example if you look at men participating in politics, there is very little shaming at a personal level of talking about your family, your home, threats against your spouse, your children but then for women those threats become more real, so thus when you find that man sometimes don’t have a clear understanding and say so what is the problem but when there is that framing capacity building in man understanding what the problems are, they give lot of support for the participation of women in digital spaces.”
Zirima said there is a need for policymakers to come up with mechanisms that protect women so that they feel safe to participate in online spaces.
She however said the challenges differ when it comes to young women as, “ these are very receptive to a lot of innovations that are there, the challenge might be about accessing smartphones that are good quality so that they can produce content and fully participate in the digital space.”
Zimbabwe has enacted the Data Protection Act which among other things seeks to curtail the transmission of data messages inciting violence or damage to property, Cyber-bullying and harassment and the transmission of intimate images without consent.
