The dark side of tech for gender inequality in the Middle East

Disturbing evidence by Dutch NGO Rutgers shows that some of the worst impacts of technology - technology-facilitated gender-based violence - are prolific in Morocco, Jordan, and Lebanon, among several other countries they surveyed.

What’s more, technology-facilitated gender-based violence is shrinking the space where women can be online and have a voice, and even excluding them from public life.

“We thought at the beginning, online activism was opening doors for women who could not get out of the house, they could still have a voice, but now all of this kind of violence online is seeking to push back against those advancements and try to make things worse for women in general,” Hadeel Abdel Aziz, executive director of the Justice Centre for Legal Aid in Jordan, told The New Arab.

The multi-country study, Decoding Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: A Reality Check from Seven Countries, was commissioned as part of Rutgers’ Generation G programme, which seeks to build bridges between the younger and elder generations of activists. Part of its mission is to address gender inequality and reduce gender-based violence.

Respondents from Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda - involving 50 interviews following a literature review - informed findings, shedding light on the nature of technology-facilitated gender-based violence and the efficacy of measures tackling it in the represented countries.

The research findings showed that the presence of online harassment is significant across the board, with technology misused for non-consensual sharing of images, social media threats, and offline stalking, in addition to intimate partner violence. 

At the policy level, there’s a limited understanding of technology-facilitated gender-based violence’s impact and legal status among survivors, perpetrators, authorities, and society. Low levels of digital literacy and limited awareness campaigns worsen the issue. What’s more, digital violence is often trivialised by authorities, leading to low reporting rates and inadequate protection.

And while threats, violence, and harassment may be occurring online, there is an online-offline continuum of violence in that such ‘virtual’ violence follows victims into their real and physical lives.

For instance, Ghizlane Mamouni, founder of Moroccan non-profit Kif Mama Kif Baba, explained to The New Arab how she and other campaigners promoting the forthcoming new Family Law in the North African kingdom were subjected to “insulting messages” from counter-campaigners, followed by death threats against themselves and even their children to force them into silence. 

Despite this, Mamouni and other campaigners did not stop. She notes, however, that there were consequences, such as anxiety, and they were more careful about the words they used because they knew “it came with a cost”.

Self-censorship is an effect seen in Jordan, notes Aziz, who points to two notable instances of technology-facilitated gender-based violence in the Hashemite kingdom. Firstly, those in public office and political, human rights or women’s rights activists tend to face online gender-based violence weaponised for political reasons. “Sexualising” women is a common tactic as the social implications are more damaging. 

“Women would be accused of being whores etc. violating and being improper. I personally faced this, others have. It’s very common,” says Aziz. 

She continues that critics may troll them, telling them to “get back to the kitchen,” with patriarchal norms forming the undercurrent to such abuse. The Rutgers research also found that such patriarchal ideas can proliferate more readily online with the rise of technology.

For women not in the public eye, particularly younger women or girls, “sextortion” is another manifestation of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, where the victim is blackmailed with private and intimate images of them or snapshots of their conversations, threatening to show them to their parent or publish them online. Threats could be for further sexual favours, for example.

Poverty or monetary implications can also be a motivating factor for technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

For example, one survey respondent said of the trend: “We started documenting some adolescent girls using TikTok, and they are going naked on TikTok because they are getting some money. They are encouraging others to go through this and this is very dangerous because we don’t have any precaution and protection policies.” 

While there are laws in all three countries that seek to tackle the crime, they do not adequately protect people from technology-facilitated gender-based violence due to conflicts of law or selective application. 

For instance, the Penal Code of 1810 still has within it laws that criminalise sex outside wedlock, same-sex relationships, adultery, and abortion. This law, inherited from the French, has been a huge obstacle for victims of technology-facilitated gender-based violence in Morocco to seek protection provided by other laws, according to Mamouni.

So, even though capturing or broadcasting private images of a person without their consent is outlawed, other laws would see the victims prosecuted under the penal code, recalling the case of a young female student who approached a prosecutor with a claim.

The prosecutor – also a woman – advised her to leave before she could finish her testimonial because if she confessed that she was being blackmailed with images of having sex outside of wedlock, they would have to arrest her before moving on to the boy.

"Technology-facilitated gender-based violence is shrinking the space where women can be online and have a voice, and even excluding them from public life"

Aziz admits that the cybercrime law in Jordan is enforced but there are disparities. For instance, insults against an official or leader would be swiftly acted on. And even though the prosecutor could start a case for a public official being insulted online without them needing to report it, there is an onus on ordinary members of the public to report incidents and bring evidence of the crime, submitting the proper paperwork and sometimes even their phone, which can be a deterrent to reporting.

In general, technology-facilitated gender-based violence is not taken seriously as a crime across the countries surveyed by Rutgers – a UN Women survey from 2022 in eight Arab states also found 41% of women and 48% of men thought “online violence is not a serious matter as long as it remains online” – but the impacts, as mentioned spill offline.

According to 56% of the research’s interviewees, psychological harm is common. “Some people even reach the point of suicide due to such situations,” said one policymaker from Lebanon.

Vulnerable segments of society experience technology-facilitated gender-based violence more starkly, including those who identify as LGBTQ+, as are individuals with a disability and resulting reliance on technology. However, politicians are also at high risk - 24% of interviewees in the report recognised this propensity, which sways them from public life and even running in elections.

Organisations and communities in respondent countries are taking action to tackle technology-facilitated gender-based violence, with initiatives such as digital literacy workshops and survivor guidelines. However, broadly speaking, technology-facilitated gender-based violence is overlooked and underestimated and even positive steps in legislation – as seen in Indonesia – need to be accompanied by adequate implementation, including awareness raising and training of law enforcement, says Loes Loning, a researcher for Rutgers.

Effective measures require multistakeholder collaboration, including between online platforms, police and other authorities. “The voice of survivors needs to be central in these discussions,” adds Loning.

Statistics show that digital violence is on the rise across the Middle East and North Africa, with nearly half of the women in the region experiencing online violence. Such digital violence against women restricts their freedom of expression and participation in digital spaces, denying them essential access to modern technologies, information and knowledge, as reported by SMEX, whose Digital Safety Helpdesk receives hundreds of reports of digital violence from countries including Lebanon and Egypt.

SMEX’s Helpdesk statistics also indicate a rise in sexual blackmail cases in the region, particularly targeting LGBTQIA+ individuals, journalists, and activists. They note threats against civil society workers in Jordan as a” clear example”.

Further research is needed to understand the nature and consequences of technology-facilitated gender-based violence for survivors and broader society, Loening says.

"When women are silenced because of [technology-facilitated gender-based violence] … then it’s not just a threat to them as individuals but also to women’s equal participation, part civic participation and ultimately to their participation in democracy at a societal level."

Sophia Akram is a researcher and communications professional with a special interest in human rights, particularly across the Middle East.

Follow her on Twitter: @mssophiaakram