I was, this morning, reading two pieces on AI and violence against women.
— AllAfrica – Gatefield AI Violence Report (Feb 11, 26) and
— UNDP – Digital Defenders (Feb 11, 25)
The numbers are scary. An estimated 70 million Nigerian women could face AI-facilitated abuse by 2030. Add to that the rise of deepfakes that are being weaponised against women in public life, and it’s hard not to feel a knot in your stomach.
Reading through, I kept seeing three big gaps that actually build upon each other, especially for Nigerian women and women across different contexts as well.
1️⃣ The Knowledge Gap: We are talking about tens of millions of women at risk, yet there is no coordinated, gender-aware legal framework around AI-enabled abuse in Nigeria. We already see deepfakes used to discredit and intimidate women in politics and public spaces. But there are no sustained public awareness efforts explaining AI-facilitated gender violence in everyday language, and no clear front door for women to seek help when it happens.
Right now, I doubt many women even know what is possible – or that what’s happening to them online has a name.
2️⃣ The Governance Gap and the Law-to-Life Disconnect: I’ve seen some pieces of tech and cyber regulations that do exist, but they were not written with gendered harm in mind.
Here’s what I didn’t see:
- A systematic gender analysis built into AI policy development,
- A clear accountability mechanism for platforms that host this abuse,
- And thinking about how to translate “AI ethics” into actual protection for an everyday woman in Abuja, Obgomosho or Owerri.
On paper, there are “laws”. In practice, there is a very wide Law-to-Life gap because the journey from policy to lived protection is broken.
3️⃣ The Infrastructure Gap (We Wait Until It’s a Crisis): Most of what we have now is reaction, not prevention. Yes, so much is indeed happening around digital literacy, community resilience and safer online spaces. But:
- funding for this work is slim,
- there are barely any African-based digital forensics capacity to quickly verify deepfakes if at all,
- and not enough women’s rights organisations with the technical tools to document, escalate, and challenge AI-enabled abuse.
So here we are with a problem at hand and asking under-resourced groups to fight 21st-century harms with 20th-century infrastructure.
So what do we do with this information? Here’s my suggestion
One starting point – and this is where my work naturally sits – is to apply a Law-to-Life journey to AI governance.
That means:
- mapping the journey from “policy passed” to “woman actually protected”
- identifying where women fall through the cracks (information, reporting, evidence, platform response, law enforcement, stigma)
- and designing a delivery blueprint with clear accountability indices so we can track progress over time.
I also believe we need to start framing gender-responsive AI governance as part of extremism prevention and democratic resilience.
When women are systematically targeted, silenced, and humiliated through AI-enabled tools, it is not only a “women’s issue”. It harms public life, feeds polarisation, and deepens the sense that systems are neither just nor safe.
I’m sharing this here because many of you work at the intersections of AI, governance, peacebuilding, digital rights, and gender justice.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear:
👉🏾 Where do you see one practical entry point for closing these gaps – knowledge, governance, or infrastructure – rather than writing yet another strategy?
Still Listening. Still Learning.
#AI #GenderJustice #Nigeria #DigitalRights #OnlineGBV #TechPolicy #AIForGood #LawToLife
Yop Rwang Pam
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