Female reporters in Nigeria covering technology and other beats are exposed to online harassment, which is persistent, gendered, and mentally exhausting as digital platforms become increasingly essential for journalism.
Ayomide Eweje, programme officer at Media Rights Agenda (MRA), noted this while raising urgent concerns at a session focused on digital safety and the mental health crisis faced by women in media during a 2-day workshop on the safety of female journalists in Nigeria hosted by MRA, in Lagos.
“The battlefield is no longer just physical, but it is digital. The rules of engagement have changed; we can’t hide and we can’t blend in. But when the attacks are online, how do we respond? Once they realise you are female, the discussion shifts completely. You are no longer the journalist; you are the woman who is not married, or the one who is too opinionated,” Eweje said.
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Women at the Media Rights Agenda workshop noted that more women in journalism are finding themselves targeted not for the merit of their stories, but for their gender, and the attacks are deeply personal, from trolling to smear campaigns using intimate content.
They noted that the shift in focus from professional content to personal life is not just annoying but destructive as it leads to emotional burnout, professional doubt, and, in many cases, self-censorship.
“When your images are released or your house is posted online, how do you even sleep at night? You begin to think twice before putting your byline on a tough story,” a female journalist who pleaded anonymity noted.
The mental impact is fear of physical retaliation, emotional exhaustion, and the dread of opening social media, and these are daily realities for many female reporters. For some, the trauma is so severe that it leads to withdrawal from investigative journalism altogether, according to them.
Blessing Oladunjoye, publisher at BONews Service, added that while such harassment is widespread, many newsrooms remain unprepared or unwilling to support women through these challenges.
“Even when policies exist, they’re often informal or inconsistently applied. We need concrete, gender-sensitive protections embedded into newsroom culture,” she said.
According to her, several organisations such as MRA are working to fill this gap, offering legal assistance, digital safety resources, and support for female journalists filing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. But the need goes beyond legal remedies. “Sometimes we don’t want to go to court, we just want to feel safe, heard, and supported without having to relive our trauma,” Oladunjoye stated.
There was a call for collective responsibility, and fellow journalists, editors, newsroom heads, tech platforms, and regulators should do more than issue statements; they must act by creating safe reporting environments and swiftly addressing harassment when it arises.
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As Nigeria continues to evolve as a digital economy, the role of women reporting on technology and rights is more critical than ever, but their ability to work without fear depends on how society, especially the media industry, chooses to respond to the threats they face online, the attendees echoed.
“We can’t afford to lose our voices to fear because when we go silent, the truth goes with us,” Eweje added.
Ayode Longe, deputy executive director at Media Rights Agenda, said the workshop is coming at an auspicious time, with the rise in the incidents of attacks on journalists, especially female journalists who face peculiar attacks, both online and offline, targeted at them because of their gender.
Longe noted that female journalists frequently face targeted, subtle, and glaring attacks as a result of their gender, including sexual harassment, gender-based violence, because they are journalists, when they are engaged in fieldwork and while covering conflict situations. In addition to all these, they face discrimination in their places of work. “Female journalists are likely to face online attacks that are often sexualised and characterised by contempt for women or other prejudice against them,” he added.
