ICTs and Women’s Political Participation

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published new guidance urging lawmakers to act faster and more decisively against non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including sexualized deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence (AI), a phenomenon that disproportionately targets women and girls.

When NASA was preparing for the launch of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, the engineers asked Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, if

When a woman parliamentary aspirant in Nyeri County withdrew from an election race after a fabricated sex video was circulated online, the attack went beyond humiliating one individual.

Online violence is real violence.

In the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem, a disturbing form of synthetic media has emerged as one of the most potent tools of intimidation and character assassination: sexual deepfakes.

While victims include anonymous women and girls, those with a public profile are particularly exposed to the danger of deepfakes. Campaigners and experts say the images are designed not only to humiliate them, but to push them out of public debate.

Women who enter public life, including journalists, activists and those in politics, have always understood that visibility comes at a cost.