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The Uganda Media Women’s Association, has released a report on online Gender Based violence. The report highlighted misogyny; hate against women and girls online. Misogyny has the power to change attitudes, beliefs, actions and create social structures that degrade, demean or discriminate against, and target women. Misogyny is rooted in the production and distribution of news. UMWA analysed over 1,000 tweets online and discovered that 73% of women journalists are targeted online with negative sexist comments that are meant to demean their personalities and discourage them at work. The research shows that women are 27 times more likely to experience harassment than men.
Due to increased online gender-based violence over 66% of victims observed blocked the perpetuators of violence against them. Comments such as women and girls being called soup were common place on the internet.
Sexist language was commonplace and this belittled women and girls. Some Media Houses like Galaxy Fm and Chimp reports are key perpetrators. Nile post had 11% of misogynistic comments.
Over 73% of online users promote sexual harassment, violence and threats of violence, stereotypes, objectification of the body of women, the hypes, legs, lips of women are often referenced in media spaces, sometimes consciously or unconsciously. The report highlights testimonies of women who have reported online based violence to the Police, but have not got justice. Some of them have lost their laptops to the Police, as they claimed to pick fingerprints and follow perpetrators, but instead stayed with the laptops to-date. Women Politicians and women activists were also captured in report as having faced slur comments , sexual harassment and threats of violence.
The report reveals that 32% of women have been discredited online simply because they are women. The types of Misogyny that were tracked include; derails ( tries to justify abuse of women online. The men spoken to stated women were somewhat responsible for the abuse they face on online platforms. The reports highlight the gaps in policy and laws that should hold be used to hold perpetrators accountable. The ease with which women and girls are attacked online is of concern to the Uganda Media Women’s Association which wishes to further the conversations to address misogyny. UMWA has developed a tool that media houses can use to identify misogyny and minimize the unrealistic sexist comments on women and girls online. UMWA will lead the way on engaging the managers of X-spaces to deal with the perpetrators of Misogyny.
The report highlights how female journalists have encountered harassment and discrimination online and the report creates a deeper understanding of what happens online and that most women online face some kind of violence. UMWA is committed to ensuring that women are safe in physical and online spaces. Televisions, radios, online spaces are important platforms of dissemination of information and should be conscious to develop policies on misogyny.
The report calls on the Government to develop clear guidelines for online platforms to address misogyny with specific procedures for reporting and taking down of misogynistic content. The report calls on women, especially journalists, politicians, and civil society activists, need to be empowered to not only report these online negative incidents but also how to fence them off.
UMWA is an organisation that is committed to promoting women to impact on the development of their country and engendering policies.