Jinja city has been cited as one of the areas with high number of registered cases of online gender-based violence.
This is according to a new research finding from a study conducted by Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET). According to the research that was conducted in 2020, ninety nine (99%) percent of females were impacted by online gender-based violence compared to 0.3% of males.
Esther Nyapendi, a technical support officer at the organization notes that in the five districts where the study was conducted, Jinja topped the list followed by Kampala, Kabarole, Lira and Kabale districts.
According to Nyapendi most female victims of online abuse fear to report their cases to relevant authorities like the police because they are considered vulnerable and also many remain anonymous being stigmatized by society.
To change the narrative, Nyapendi said that they have trained forty women from Jinja to ensure that they are aware of the measures of digital safety and security while using online platforms especially social like Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, X; formerly Twitter.
Women are more exposed to online crime and abuse as compared to their male counterparts. In 2018, the then Kabarole Woman Member of Parliament, Sylvia Rwabwogo was consistently harassed using obscene SMS texts and social media messages through WhatsApp by Brian Isiko; a student of YMCA Jinja campus at the time.
The case was later dismissed by High Court Judge then Jane Frances Abodo; now Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) over failure of the complainant to testify against the accused.
Similarly, women are consistently attacked over their online activities with a number of cases that are aimed at nothing less than demeaning.
The worst cases of online violence against women is manifested in non-consensual intimate imagery commonly known by the misnomer “revenge porn” which is mainly perpetrated against women with their sexually explicit private and personal information (such as videos and images) shared in the public domain (internet) without consent of one or more persons in the frame, according to the report.
However, as it stands the term gender based violence has taken the downward trajectory to mean only violence against women and girls, and a lot needs to be done by government and other stakeholders through formulation of policies that ensure that both genders are accorded equal treatment in all sphere of life, starting from families as the old adage says “charity begins at home.”