Twitter link for women to report social media slurs

Women can now report cases of gender-based violence through mobile phones and social media platforms.

The campaign on how to report violations including those via social sites, was yesterday launched in Kisumu by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television.

Information Communication Technology expert Washington Odhiambo said the technology was geared towards making women brave enough to report the insults they encounter in social media.

“More women are shying away from reporting insults and once they experience that, they shut down their social media accounts to avoid the embarrassment,” Mr Odhiambo said.

The campaign, which has been conducted countrywide, is to enlighten women and women’s groups on how to report social media crimes that have become rampant.

EMPOWERING WOMEN

“The campaign is geared towards empowering women to come out in large numbers and report all forms of violations against them on social sites so that policymakers can know how to handle technology-based violence cases,” he said.

Speaking while training women organisations on how to use Twitter, email, Facebook and mobile phones, to remain secure online, Mr Odhiambo said the information is expected to trickle down to other women in Western and Nyanza regions.

“We are teaching women’s groups on how to collect information on violence mapping, done on an international open source platform called ‘Ushahidi’,” he added.

He advised women who have experienced cybercrime to submit the abuse information on the Twitter hash tag— #TECHVAW2013— that was opened during the training.

The training is in the context of the ongoing 16-days of activism against gender-based violence campaign.