CC: Digital Safety and Cybersecurity in Tech-Driven GBV

Tech-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is rising across Kampala as more people use smartphones, digital payments, and social media platforms. While digital transformation is expanding opportunities for connection, learning, and economic participation, it is also creating new forms of harm that disproportionately target women and marginalised groups.
For many women, online spaces now mirror or even intensify the power imbalances they face offline. Cyberstalking, unsolicited sexual content, impersonation, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, hacking, and online harassment are becoming alarmingly common, with limited awareness of digital safety or accessible reporting pathways.

This Conversation Café is designed to:
Raise awareness of the different forms of TFGBV and how they show up in Kampala.
Equip participants with practical digital resilience and cybersecurity skills.
Clarify legal frameworks that protect individuals online in Uganda.
Create space for collective reflection, experience sharing, and solution building.
The goal is not only to inform but to empower. By understanding the risks and strengthening digital resilience, individuals and communities can better protect themselves and support others facing online harm.

Context:
Uganda has rapidly embraced digital technologies from social media to online banking but public awareness of online safety has not kept pace with this digital growth. Women and girls, in particular, are navigating online spaces with increased exposure to harassment, targeted misinformation, cyberstalking, identity theft, and sexual exploitation.

In Kampala, reports and anecdotal accounts show:
Increased cases of account takeovers and blackmail.
Revenge pornography used to shame, control, or extort survivors.
Deep fake misuse emerging as a new threat.
Women activists, journalists, and visible community leaders facing coordinated online attacks.

Yet, many people do not know:
How to recognize early signs of digital targeting.
Where and how to report online abuse.
What the law actually protects them from.
How to build personal or organizational digital resilience.

This Café brings together feminist perspectives, digital safety expertise, and legal knowledge to create a rounded, practical conversation that speaks directly to Kampala’s realities.