0
0
Echo Network Africa(EBA) a non-governmental organisation dealing with empowerment and advocacy of women and Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) yesterday launched a campaign aiming to fight against cyber bullying especially to women. This event was held ahead of The International Women’s Day which is to be celebrated on the 8th of March.
ENA Chairperson Dr. Jenifer Riria said,”the online space and information revolutions has brought numerous opportunities especially for women leaders to gain visibility and networking platforms, this has made communication easy within a borderless world. However, this has come with its own disadvantages especially online attacks”.
Women occupying public spaces suffer from online bullying, threats and abuse. Technology assisted violence against women targeted at women politicians include: public shaming, hate speech, online harassment, cyber bullying, trolling, defamation, cyber stalking, identity theft, hacking amongst others.
It is for this reason that Echo Network Africa on 28th March, 2023 launched the #Stopcyberbulliesnow campaign to promote women leaders online safety. The campaign was officiated by Her Excellency Hon. Anne Waiguru, Chairperson Council of Governors and Governor Kirinyaga County who is also a key champion of the campaign. “In Kenya bullying towards women leaders can take several forms including harassment, intimidation, threats. In my career, I have faced my fair share of cyber bullying and so has every other womwoman leader.”, said the pioneer woman governor.
The event also hosted a panel discussion to better have an understanding of the nature and pattern of women leaders in Kenya and to make recommendations on how to better ensure their own online safety through existing mechanism, personal responsibility including online etiquette.
The panel brought together different individuals to deliberate towards the objective of promoting women’s safety by making recommendations that would promote women’s online safety.
Echo Network also awarded veteran content creator, Lynn Ngugi the Gender Justice Award for her contribution towards fighting for the rights of women and promoting women’s online safety.
