Technology-facilitated GBV rising faster than the laws meant to stop it
For more than two decades, Yordanos Goushe built a public life defined by professional credibility. At 45, she is a journalist, author, and entrepreneur — and a mother, now eight months pregnant. But in recent months, she says, that carefully constructed life was shaken by a campaign of cyberbullying and blackmail that unfolded largely in public view.
What began, she told The Reporter, as an effort to seek legal redress over a collapsed business deal soon spiraled into what she describes as sustained online harassment, threats, and extortion — carried out by people she initially trusted to help her.
After the business arrangement failed, affecting both her work and income, Yordanos sought legal assistance. Through a TikTok content curator she followed, she was introduced to a man presented to her as a lawyer. The intermediary facilitated contact and early discussions about possible legal action. For a time, she said, the process appeared to move forward. Then it stalled.
According to Yordanos, the relationship soured abruptly. She alleges that both the TikToker and the purported lawyer turned against her, demanding money and threatening further harm. “They threatened to kill me and harassed me online by fabricating stories that had nothing to do with me,” she said. “They blackmailed me to pay money. They even posted a video using my name that was viewed by more than one million people.”
The demands, she said, escalated rapidly — from 40,000 birr to as much as 150,000 birr within a single day.
The consequences were not confined to social media. As allegations spread online, Yordanos said business partners withdrew from active deals, wary of the reputational damage. She traced her vulnerability to earlier professional setbacks, including a failed venture during the northern Ethiopian war and a subsequent period of financial strain.
Refusing to comply with the blackmail, she said, made her a further target. “I wouldn’t give in and be defeated easily,” she said.
Her experience, she argues, reflects a broader reality of life online in Ethiopia — one she describes as increasingly hostile and unregulated. “Social media in our country has become a place where anyone can be attacked, humiliated, or misrepresented with one wrong post,” she said. “One video, one comment, one rumor can destroy a person’s name, business, mental health, and sense of security.”
She says her photo, name, and private details were circulated without consent, accompanied by false narratives that spread rapidly. “It was painful, shocking, and emotionally draining,” Yordanos said, adding that what troubled her most was how quickly people accepted and shared the claims without verification.
Yordanos believes her gender and professional visibility made her particularly vulnerable. She described the abuse as coordinated, involving multiple individuals and their followers across several platforms. Over 15 consecutive days, she said, she faced continuous harassment, threats, and blackmail.
“It was very difficult to manage attacks coming from different directions while trying to protect my name and the dignity of my family,” she said.
She reported the case to the police, who opened an investigation and issued warning letters to both the TikTok content curator and the alleged lawyer. A legal case has been filed against the latter, she said, while the whereabouts of the TikToker remain unknown. More than 40 days after filing her complaint, Yordanos said, the harassment had not fully stopped.
“Cyberbullying is real,” she said. “It breaks people. It creates fear. It destroys confidence.”
Her experience is far from isolated. Cyberbullying affects not only high-profile women but also those in visible professions — lawyers, teachers, parents, and students — who find themselves exposed in an increasingly digital public sphere. Many become targets after sharing personal or professional information online, only to encounter harassment that is swift, public, and difficult to contain.
Those realities were on display at the recently held sheEsecures TFGBV Screenshot Exhibition, which documented experiences of technology-facilitated gender-based violence faced by women in Ethiopia. The exhibition highlighted threats, humiliation, non-consensual sharing of images, body shaming, and character attacks — forms of online harm that organizers say have become normalized in women’s digital lives.
Running for a week, the exhibition presented accounts of harassment, silencing, and intimidation that women and girls continue to face online, often in isolation and with limited access to institutional protection. Organizers emphasized that the cases on display were not anomalies but part of a broader pattern that constrains women’s voices, bodies, and participation in public life.
The exhibition, they said, was intended not only to make these harms visible, but also to raise urgent questions about the absence of a clear legal framework that recognizes such acts as violence — and holds perpetrators accountable in an increasingly networked society.
Research on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in Ethiopia has expanded in recent years. Studies by Pollicy, UN Women, the CIR, and other regional and international organizations have documented how online abuse systematically drives women out of digital spaces. Yet despite this growing body of evidence, national legal responses remain largely tethered to broad computer-crime provisions that fail to capture the scale, intent, and gendered nature of these harms.
At the recent public forum pointed to cyberbullying as a symptom of a deeper legal vacuum, Ethiopian lawyer and legal adviser Seble Assafa argued that the country is confronting what she described as a devastating and distinctly gendered epidemic of online abuse.
“Cyberbullying is a silent killer that is intentionally designed to attack women and undermine their confidence based on gender,” she said. Influential women, she added, are frequently targeted to diminish their achievements, while “revenge pornography is used against women who were once part of an ended relationship.”
For Seble, who says she has experienced online abuse herself, the issue extends well beyond a technical gap in legislation. It is, she argued, a social crisis spreading “like wildfire” across platforms, taking on multiple destructive forms that often go unchallenged.
On paper, Ethiopia’s legal framework offers some protection. Seble noted that some laws prescribe penalties for abusive speech, including cyberbullying, with potential sentences of up to six months and harsher punishments for hate speech and the dissemination of false information. In practice, however, enforcement remains weak.
“The application of the law is almost nonexistent,” she said, arguing that legal actors frequently overlook existing provisions. This failure, she added, is compounded by the absence of systematic data collection and case documentation, leaving victims without meaningful recourse and obscuring the true scope of the problem.
Addressing this type of violence, Seble said, requires a response proportionate to the harm inflicted. That includes legal reform, consistent enforcement, and the integration of digital literacy into school curricula. Without these measures, she warned, responsibility for safety continues to fall unfairly on those most exposed to abuse.
“Until that happens, women and girls will continue to carry the burden of protection alone, while the digital world keeps expanding without the safeguards they deserve,” she told The Reporter, calling for a shift from acknowledgment to concrete action.
Yordanos, whose experience anchors this broader debate, framed her ordeal as evidence of a collective social failure. Online abuse, she said, has been allowed to flourish through indifference and the pursuit of attention, reflecting a culture that rewards humiliation over empathy.
“We must do better as a society,” she said. “We must learn to protect one another instead of tearing each other down. We must stop normalizing cruelty for views, likes, or entertainment, and we must hold people accountable when they use social platforms to defame, shame, or hurt others.”
She emphasized that those facing cyberbullying should not feel isolated, stressing that dignity and safety online are not privileges but rights.
Beyond personal resilience, Yordanos underscored the need for institutional responses. She pointed to gaps in law-enforcement capacity, limited public awareness, and unclear legal procedures that leave victims vulnerable. Police training, accessibility, and well-defined guidelines, she argued, are essential to addressing digital abuse effectively.
“Social media was not created to destroy a country’s system or undermine the law,” she said. “When individuals gain unchecked power online, they become a threat not only to individuals but to the country itself.”
Yordanos urged victims to seek justice through formal channels rather than vigilante action, while calling for clearer consequences and broader public education so accountability is understood before harm occurs.
