Introduction
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) refers to abusive or violent acts against individuals (primarily women and girls) that are carried out or aggravated through digital technologies. In Nigeria, as internet use has grown, digital spaces have become especially hostile for women, who face cyberstalking, online harassment, doxxing, and even threats of physical or sexual violence. This has prompted legal reforms to tackle such abuses. Nigeria’s Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2024 – an amendment of the 2015 Cybercrime Act – includes provisions that can be applied to TFGBV. This report provides a legal and policy analysis of those provisions, assessing their likely effectiveness in curbing TFGBV. It compares the 2024 Act to the previous Cybercrime Act 2015 and international frameworks such as the Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35. Key aspects examined include legal definitions of offences, enforcement mechanisms, victim protections, penalties, and the law’s strengths and gaps in addressing TFGBV.
Defining Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV)
TFGBV encompasses a range of behaviours where technology is used as a tool to inflict harm because of the target’s gender. Common forms include online harassment (e.g. sustained abusive messages or trolling), cyberstalking (persistent monitoring or threatening of a victim online), non-consensual dissemination of intimate images (so-called “revenge porn”), doxxing (publishing personal information to invite harm), and technology-assisted blackmail or sexual exploitation. The defining feature is that the violence is gendered – victims are targeted because they are women (or gender-diverse), or such acts disproportionately affect women and girls. For instance, a UN Special Rapporteur defined digital gender-based violence as “any act of gender-based violence against women that is committed, assisted or aggravated in part or fully by the use of ICT… against a woman because she is a woman, or affects women disproportionately”undp.org. Importantly, international bodies now recognize online abuse as part of the continuum of violence against women. The CEDAW Committee’s General Recommendation No. 35 (2017) explicitly notes “contemporary forms of violence occurring on the Internet and digital spaces” as gender-based violence that states must address. With this understanding, Nigeria’s legal framework can be evaluated for how well it tackles TFGBV.
Overview of Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2015
The Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 was Nigeria’s first comprehensive law on cybercrimes. It criminalised various online and computer-related offences – from financial crimes and hacking to identity theft, cyber-terrorism, and child pornography. Notably, the 2015 Act included Section 24 (“Cyberstalking”), which broadly made it an offence to use a computer or network to send certain harmful messages. Under Section 24(1) of the 2015 law, it was a crime to send any message that was “grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” or to send a message one knows to be false “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety” to another. A conviction under this section carried up to 3 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to ₦7 million.
Section 24(2) of the 2015 Act further criminalised using a computer to bully, threaten, or harass someone in a manner that places the person in fear of death, violence or bodily harm, as well as various forms of online threats (e.g. threats of kidnapping, violence, or exposing someone to ridicule or extorting them). These graver offences had harsher penalties – for example, cyber harassment that causes fear of death or violence, or threats of kidnapping/extortion online, could attract up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a minimum ₦25 million fine. The Act also specifically outlawed child pornography (Section 23), with offences for producing, possessing, or distributing child sexual abuse material, aligning with international norms on protecting children online.
While the 2015 Act gave Nigeria tools to prosecute online abuse, its definitions were criticised as overly broad. Terms like “grossly offensive” or causing “annoyance” or “ill will” are subjective. In practice, Section 24 was often misused to stifle legitimate expression – authorities invoked “cyberstalking” against journalists, bloggers, and critics for online posts deemed annoying or insulting. This raised free-speech concerns, suggesting the law’s broad wording could be turned against the very people it ought to protect (including women speaking up about abuse). At the same time, gender-specific issues like online harassment of women or non-consensual intimate image sharing were not explicitly named in the Act, potentially leaving some TFGBV conduct without a clear legal label (aside from fitting it into the general cyberstalking provision). By 2023, calls grew for reforms to narrow the law’s scope to prevent abuse while still addressing genuine cybercrimes.
Cybercrime Act 2024: New Provisions Targeting TFGBV
In February 2024, Nigeria enacted the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) (Amendment) Act 2024, updating the 2015 law. Several amendments are directly relevant to TFGBV:
- Refined Definition of Cyberstalking (Section 24): The amendment narrowed the scope of Section 24 to curtail misuse. Under the amended Section 24(1), it is now an offence to send messages via computer that are pornographic or that one knows to be false “for the purpose of causing a breakdown of law and order or posing a threat to life”. This is a significant change from the 2015 language that criminalised speech causing mere “annoyance” or using “grossly offensive” words. By removing vague terms like “insult” or “ill will” and focusing on messages that threaten public order or life, the law aims to protect against serious harms (including violent incitement) rather than punishing subjective offensiveness. Importantly, online threats of violence – which are a core aspect of TFGBV when women receive death or rape threats – remain squarely criminal under the “threat to life” criterion. The penalty for cyberstalking remains up to 3 years imprisonment or ₦7 million fine for these offences, maintaining a strong deterrent.
- Criminalisation of Online Harassment and Threats (Section 24(2)): The 2024 Act retains and reinforces provisions on online harassment and threats. It is still a crime to knowingly transmit any communication to bully, threaten, or harass another person in a way that puts them in fear of death, violence, or bodily harm. Explicit threats of violence, kidnapping, or harmful exposure (for example, threatening to harm someone’s reputation or accuse them of a crime to extort money) are criminal offences. As under the 2015 Act, the most severe forms of tech-assisted threats (e.g. death threats or extortion) carry heavy penalties – e.g. 10 years imprisonment and at least ₦25 million fine for threats of death, injury, or kidnapping, and 5 years or ₦15 million minimum fine for lesser extortive threats. These stiff penalties reflect the gravity of TFGBV acts like cyberstalking and online sexual extortion, signalling strong punitive measures against perpetrators.
- Protective Orders for Victims: A notable feature, continued from the 2015 Act, is the ability of courts to issue protective restraining orders for victims of cyberstalking. Under Section 24(3), when sentencing an offender (or otherwise dealing with a convicted person), a court may order measures to protect the victim or any other person from further harassment or fear of violence. Such an order can prohibit the offender from any specified act – for example, from contacting or publishing about the victim – to prevent continued abuse. If the offender violates this order, it is a separate offence punishable by up to 3 years imprisonment or ₦10 million fine. The law even allows interim orders for victim protection pending a final order, to quickly halt ongoing harassment. This mechanism is a significant victim-protection tool: it acknowledges that, beyond punishing abusers, preventing further harm to victims (such as women being stalked online) is crucial. By enabling restraining orders in cyber-harassment cases, the Act mirrors approaches in some jurisdictions’ anti-harassment laws and provides legal relief and safety for victims of TFGBV.
- Coverage of Image-Based and Sexual Offences: The Cybercrime Act also addresses certain sexually exploitative online behaviours. Child pornography is comprehensively criminalised by Section 23, as noted, with offences including producing, distributing, possessing or accessing child sexual abuse images. This aligns with international standards (and is particularly relevant to protecting girls from sexual exploitation online). However, it must be noted that the Act does not explicitly mention “revenge porn” or non-consensual intimate image sharing involving adults. In practice, sharing someone’s private sexual images without consent could potentially be prosecuted under general provisions – for instance, if done to harass the victim, it might be caught by Section 24 (as causing fear, harm to reputation, or extortion if threats are involved). Indeed, forms of image-based abuse are recognised as a form of cyberbullying in Nigeria, but the law stops short of naming a distinct offence for it. This could be seen as a gap, given the prevalence of such TFGBV acts globally.
- Hate Speech and Gender-Based Harassment: The Act criminalises certain online hate speech under Section 26 (“Racist and xenophobic offences”), prohibiting the use of a computer to disseminate materials that incite hatred or violence against people based on race, ethnicity, colour, religion, etc. Notably, sex or gender is not listed among the protected characteristics in that section. Thus, misogynistic hate speech or threats targeting someone because she is a woman are not explicitly distinguished as a hate crime under the cybercrime law. They would be prosecuted under the general cyberstalking or threat provisions without the recognition of the gender-based motivation. This omission represents misalignment with TFGBV’s gendered nature – it does not treat gender-based online attacks as a unique category, whereas international norms (like CEDAW) urge acknowledgement of the gender bias in such violence.
Beyond these substantive provisions, the Cybercrime Act 2024 retains investigative and enforcement powers that can aid in TFGBV cases. The law grants authorities powers (with appropriate oversight) to collect electronic evidence, and it has extraterritorial reach – Section 50 extends jurisdiction so that offences committed outside Nigeria (e.g. a perpetrator abroad targeting a Nigerian woman online) can be tried by Nigerian courts. Additionally, there are institutional frameworks (a Cybercrime Advisory Council, etc.) and funding mechanisms (like the Cybersecurity Fund via Section 44) intended to strengthen enforcement capabilities. The National Judicial Council has moved to train judges on the amended Act and digital crimes, indicating efforts to improve enforcement through capacity building (a response to the complexities of cybercrime cases, including online GBV). Effective enforcement will require that police and prosecutors are also trained and sensitised to TFGBV, so that these legal provisions are actually used to protect victims rather than ignored or misapplied.
Comparison to the 2015 Act: Improvements and Changes
Compared to the Cybercrime Act 2015, the 2024 amendments made targeted improvements that affect TFGBV cases:
- Narrowing Overbroad Language: The 2015 Act’s broad terms (“grossly offensive”, causing “annoyance”, etc.) were pruned in 2024, reducing the risk of trivial or abusive prosecutions. For women who faced online abuse, this change is double-edged. On one hand, it safeguards against misuse of the law (e.g., a woman blogger criticising someone shouldn’t be charged just because her post annoyed a powerful individual). On the other hand, the removal of “obscene or indecent” content from the definition means that certain non-threatening but harassing behaviours (like sending unsolicited obscene images or abusive insults) might not clearly fall under the new Section 24(1). The threshold for illegality is now higher (threats to life or public order). Thus, while the reform was positive for civil liberties, it could inadvertently leave some forms of online gendered harassment (e.g. sexual taunts or non-consensual explicit images) outside the cybercrime law’s scope, unless they qualify as credible threats or pornography. By contrast, the 2015 wording arguably allowed prosecution for a wider array of harassing communications (though at the cost of vagueness).
- Continuity of Protective Measures: The protective order provisions for victims remain intact from 2015 to 2024, which is a strength carried forward. This indicates legislative acknowledgement (since 2015) that cyber-harassment cases require more than just penalising the offender – they require ongoing protection for victims. In both versions of the law, courts have the power to bar convicts from contacting or harassing victims in futureharlemsolicitors.comharlemsolicitors.com. The continued inclusion of this remedy in 2024 reinforces Nigeria’s commitment to victim-centred justice in cybercrime cases, including TFGBV.
- Penalties and Deterrence: Penalties for cyberstalking and related offences were already severe in 2015 and remain so in 2024. The amendment did not significantly alter the fines or prison terms for TFGBV-relevant crimes – e.g., 3 years max for general cyberstalking, 10 years for violent threats, etc. This continuity means the deterrent effect (in theory) is unchanged: the threat of multi-year imprisonment and multi-million naira fines is on the books. However, an improvement in 2024 is that the burden of proof is clarified to be higher for some offences (only punishing false information if it risks public order or life), which might reduce frivolous cases and focus enforcement on serious offences – presumably those more likely to include genuine TFGBV incidents (like threats and stalking as opposed to mere insults).
- Additional Amendments: The 2024 Act made other changes (e.g., to sections on cyber fraud, data interception, and the cybersecurity fund), but those are less directly related to gender-based abuse. One relevant update is Nigeria’s effort to align with international best practices: between 2015 and 2024, Nigeria acceded to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime (in 2022). The 2024 amendments were partly aimed at harmonising with that treaty’s standards. While the Budapest Convention itself does not specifically address online gender-based violence, its requirements (e.g. criminalising child porn, illegal access, cooperation mechanisms) bolster the legal infrastructure that also underpins TFGBV prosecutions. For instance, being part of the Convention facilitates international cooperation in investigating cross-border online abuse, which is crucial if, say, perpetrators of online harassment reside outside Nigeria. The 2015 Act already covered most Convention offences, but by 2024, Nigeria’s membership meant those laws are backed by treaty-based cooperation tools.
In summary, the 2024 Act fine-tuned the cybercrime law, addressing some civil liberties concerns from 2015 and reinforcing alignment with global cybercrime frameworks. These changes are largely positive, though they introduce a need to ensure no new gaps are created in covering all forms of TFGBV.
International Frameworks Comparison
Alignment with the Budapest Convention
The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime (2001) is the leading international treaty on cybercrime, focusing on harmonising laws and enabling cross-border cooperation. It obligates parties to criminalise offences like hacking, data interference, computer-related fraud, child pornography, and copyright crimes, and to equip law enforcement with procedures to investigate cybercrimes (while protecting human rights). Nigeria’s cybercrime legislation is broadly aligned with these requirements. Even before formal accession, the 2015 Act mirrored many Convention provisions – for example, Nigeria outlawed unauthorised access, system intrusions, and data theft, provided for preservation of traffic data, and, as noted, comprehensively criminalised child pornography in line with the Convention’s Article 9. The 2024 amendments continue this alignment. Notably, by February 2024, Nigeria was a state party to the Budapest Convention (effective since November 2022), which bolsters enforcement of the Act through international legal cooperation.
However, the Budapest Convention does not explicitly address content-based offences like harassment or gender-based hate speech – its focus is more on hacking and traditional cybercrimes. It does have an Additional Protocol on xenophobic and racist acts committed via computer, which Nigeria’s law reflects in Section 26 (racist and xenophobic offences). But there is no equivalent international cybercrime standard for misogynistic or gender-targeted online abuse. Thus, Nigeria’s provisions on cyberstalking and online harassment are national innovations responding to local needs and human rights obligations (rather than Budapest Convention requirements). Where the Convention is relevant to TFGBV is in the procedural and cooperative aspects: since TFGBV often occurs online across borders (e.g., social media harassment coming from foreign accounts), Nigeria’s participation in the treaty enables it to request data or assistance from other countries to track perpetrators. For example, if a Nigerian woman is harassed by someone overseas, law enforcement can invoke Convention channels to obtain information about the offender from the foreign service provider – a process that would have been more difficult when Nigeria was outside the Convention framework. In this way, the efficacy of the Cybercrime Act 2024 in curbing TFGBV is strengthened by Nigeria’s adherence to the Budapest Convention, as it provides the tools for cross-border enforcement of the Act’s provisions.
Alignment with CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35
CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35 (2017) is an authoritative guidance on state obligations to eliminate gender-based violence, updating the earlier GR 19. It emphasises that all forms of gender-based violence against women, including new forms emerging in digital contexts, must be addressed with due diligence by states. GR 35 calls for comprehensive measures – not only criminalisation, but also prevention, protection, and prosecution, to combat violence against women. It highlights issues like ensuring access to justice for victims, training officials, and removing systemic barriers that perpetuate impunity.
Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2024 contributes to fulfilling some of these obligations, but is not a complete solution on its own. On the positive side, the Act does provide a legal basis to prosecute many acts of online violence against women. By clearly criminalising cyberstalking, threats, and other abuse, Nigeria has signalled that online GBV is unacceptable and punishable, which is in line with CEDAW’s requirement to treat violence against women (including online violence) as a serious offence, not a private matter. The Act’s protective order mechanism is also consistent with GR 35’s emphasis on victim protection and safety – it gives survivors a tool to prevent further harm, addressing the recommendation that legal systems ensure the protection of complainants during and after legal proceedings.
However, GR 35 also stresses prevention and broader legal reforms that go beyond penal laws. One observation is that Nigeria’s approach to TFGBV via the Cybercrime Act is gender-neutral – the law does not expressly mention women or gender-motivated abuse. While neutrality can be positive (it covers all victims), CEDAW would encourage recognising the gendered impact of these crimes. For instance, the lack of explicit mention of “online violence against women” or “sexist hate speech” in the Act could mean that the unique dynamics of TFGBV (such as abuse aimed at silencing women’s voices in public discourse) are not fully acknowledged in law. GR 35 urges an intersectional understanding of violence, and Nigeria might consider complementary measures, such as policy guidelines or amendments to include sex/gender as a protected category in hate speech or abuse provisions, to align more closely with international norms on combating violence against women.
Moreover, enforcement gaps need to be addressed to satisfy CEDAW’s standards. Laws on paper must translate into real protection. GR 35 calls for training judges, police, and officials on gender-sensitive handling of cases. Nigeria’s recent moves – like the National Judicial Council budgeting for cybercrime training and civil society efforts to raise awareness – are steps in the right direction. Yet, reports indicate many women in Nigeria do not report online abuse due to low confidence in enforcement or fear of being ignored. Indeed, as one analysis noted, Nigeria’s laws (cybercrime and others) “are failing to protect women from online gender-based violence” in practice, and reforms are needed to better cover digital abuse and support victims. This suggests that implementing the Cybercrime Act effectively – through training, public awareness, and perhaps specialised units to handle online GBV complaints – is as crucial as the content of the law itself to meet CEDAW obligations.
In summary, Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2024 is a piece of the larger puzzle of addressing TFGBV in line with international frameworks. It provides the legal powers to punish offenders (aligning with Budapest Convention requirements and CEDAW’s call for criminalisation), but the true test will be in enforcement and complementary measures (aligning with CEDAW’s broader vision of eradication of violence against women).
Effectiveness of the 2024 Act in Curbing TFGBV
Strengths of the Act
Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2024 has several strengths that could make it an effective tool against technology-facilitated gender-based violence:
- Comprehensive Coverage of Online Harassment and Threats: The Act squarely addresses behaviours that constitute TFGBV. Online stalking, harassment, and threats – including threats of physical or sexual violence, often used to terrorise women online – are explicitly criminalised with severe penalties (up to 10 years imprisonment for the worst cases). This sends a strong public message of deterrence and provides a clear basis to prosecute perpetrators. In the past, Nigerian prosecutors have successfully used the cyberstalking law to convict individuals for online abuse – for example, in 2023, a social media user was convicted for posting offensive, false, and threatening content about a female public figure. Such cases demonstrate the law’s potential bite in curbing online attacks.
- Victim Protection Mechanisms: The availability of protective orders is a major strength. Victims of cyber-harassment (e.g. a woman persistently stalked by an ex-partner via messages and social media) can get a court order forbidding the offender from further contact or online mentions. This is a proactive measure that can prevent escalation and provide psychological relief to victims, encouraging them to come forward. It aligns with best practices of not just punishing abuse but actively stopping it. The fact that breaching such an order is itself criminal (with up to 3 years in jail) adds teeth to these protections.
- Alignment with International Cooperation: In today’s borderless internet, the perpetrator of online violence could be outside Nigeria or using platforms hosted abroad. Nigeria’s accession to the Budapest Convention and the Act’s provisions on international cooperation mean the country can more readily obtain evidence or extradite suspects, and generally work with global partners to tackle cybercrimes. This significantly improves the chances of enforcement in TFGBV cases that have cross-border elements (for instance, harassment via a foreign-based social network). Many countries lacking such frameworks struggle to investigate transnational online abuse; Nigeria has positioned itself to avoid that pitfall.
- Deterrent and Punitive Power: The combination of high penalties and public visibility of the law can have a deterrent effect. Knowing that doxxing or sending a death threat online can lead to years in prison and hefty fines may give would-be offenders pause. The law’s use in some high-profile cases has drawn attention to the issue of online abuse. By amending the Act in 2024, the government also showed responsiveness to issues of misuse and abuse of the law, potentially improving public trust in the law’s fairness. If law enforcement applies the Act consistently to genuine cases of TFGBV, it can build precedent that online violence will not go unpunished.
- Integration with Wider GBV Framework: Although the Cybercrime Act is a special law, it does not exist in isolation. Nigeria also has other relevant laws, such as the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 at the federal level and equivalent laws in states, which criminalise forms of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and harassment (mostly offline). While the VAPP Act does not explicitly cover online abuse, it defines stalking and emotional abuse broadly, which could conceptually include cyberstalking. In an ideal scenario, these laws can be used in tandem – the Cybercrime Act to address the digital modus operandi of abuse, and the VAPP or other criminal laws to address any related sexual violence or serious harms. Together, they form a more holistic legal framework against GBV. The Cybercrime Act 2024 is a crucial part of this framework, tackling the technology dimension.
Gaps and Challenges
Despite its strengths, the Cybercrime Act 2024 has some gaps and faces challenges that might limit its effectiveness against TFGBV:
- No Explicit Recognition of Gender Motivation: The Act treats offences neutrally and does not label any offence as “gender-based” or aggravated due to the victim’s gender. Consequently, crimes like online threats or blackmail aimed at women because of their gender are prosecuted as generic cybercrimes. There is no enhanced penalty for, say, harassing a woman because she’s a woman (unlike how hate crime laws handle racist motives). This might be a missed opportunity to acknowledge the seriousness of misogynistic online abuse. It could also mean that collecting data or tracking the prevalence of TFGBV specifically is harder, since cases won’t be tagged as such in the justice system. International best practice is increasingly moving toward recognising misogyny as a hate motive in crimes; the absence of that in Nigeria’s cyber law is a gap.
- Potential Overreach vs. Under-inclusiveness: The 2015 Act’s overbroad language led to overreach, while the 2024 revision, though narrower, may have swung to under-inclusiveness for certain abusive behaviours. For example, sending someone unsolicited obscene images (a common form of online sexual harassment) is hurtful but may not “pose a threat to life or public order,” and thus might not clearly fall under the new Section 24(1). If no other law criminalises such conduct, perpetrators might escape liability. The lack of a specific offence for non-consensual intimate image sharing (revenge porn) is another notable gap – this is a form of digital sexual violence that disproportionately affects women, yet Nigeria’s cyber law doesn’t name or specifically address it. Some jurisdictions have enacted standalone “revenge porn” laws; Nigeria could consider this to bolster protection. As things stand, prosecutors must get creative (using general provisions like harassment or obscene publication laws) to charge such conduct, which may not always be straightforward.
- Enforcement Limitations and Underreporting: Having a law is one thing; enforcing it is another. Many victims of online gender-based violence in Nigeria may be reluctant to report incidents to the police. Factors include fear of not being taken seriously, lack of awareness that online abuse can be a crime, or even victim-blaming attitudes. Law enforcement agencies also may lack the training or resources to effectively investigate TFGBV cases – for instance, tracing an anonymous Facebook troll or gathering digital evidence can be challenging without specialised cyber units. Capacity building is needed so that police in e.g. gender desks or cybercrime units understand how to handle TFGBV complaints sensitively and technically. The judiciary, too, must keep pace – encouragingly, there are calls for specialised training for judges on digital crimes. Until these on-ground improvements materialise, the Act’s impact may be muted. In short, legal provisions have a limited impact if victims do not come forward or if cases are not properly handled.
- Risk of Misuse Remains: As media freedom advocates note, even after amendment, some provisions can still be misused by authorities to target speech they dislike. aljazeera.com. For example, the phrase “causing a breakdown of law and order” could be interpreted expansively to go after whistleblowers or protesters whose online posts rile the government. If such misuse occurs, it could overshadow the TFGBV enforcement by consuming enforcement resources for political cases and potentially chilling women’s expression online (if women fear that complaining strongly about abuse might somehow be flipped against them under cyber-harassment laws). Continued monitoring of how the law is applied is necessary to ensure it targets true malfeasors (stalkers, abusers) and not critics or victims. Civil society oversight and strategic litigation may be needed to set the right precedents.
- Need for Broader Support Systems: Lastly, a gap outside the law’s text is the lack of institutional support for survivors of online GBV. The Cybercrime Act is primarily a criminal law – it doesn’t provide for victim rehabilitation, counselling, or civil remedies (like suing an abuser for damages). CEDAW GR 35 and other frameworks stress multi-faceted support (legal, psychological, etc.). Nigeria could strengthen effectiveness by establishing, for instance, hotlines or online reporting portals for cyberviolence, legal aid for victims, and partnerships with tech platforms to remove abusive content swiftly. These are policy measures beyond the Act itself, but without them, the criminal law alone might not fully address the harm (for example, a woman might get a restraining order, but her intimate photos might still be circulating online). Collaboration with social media companies to remove violating content and identify offenders is another important aspect – the Cybercrime Act does empower law enforcement to request data, but proactive cooperation and clear content policies are also needed. In essence, the Act is a strong stick, but other carrots and shields are needed to comprehensively curb TFGBV.
Conclusion
Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2024 represents a significant legal framework for combating technology-facilitated gender-based violence, providing updated tools to prosecute online harassment, stalking, and threats. Compared to the 2015 law, the 2024 amendments sharpen the focus on serious harm (such as threats to life or public order) while preserving crucial victim protections, including restraining orders. harlemsolicitors.com The Act’s provisions largely align with international cybercrime standards, bolstered by Nigeria’s accession to the Budapest Convention, and partly fulfil Nigeria’s obligations under global women’s rights instruments by recognising that online abuse is punishable. There are clear strengths in the law: it carries strong penalties likely to deter many would-be abusers, and it offers legal remedies that can shield victims from ongoing digital violence.
At the same time, the Act is not a panacea. Key forms of TFGBV, like non-consensual intimate imagery, are not explicitly covered, and the law’s gender-neutral approach means the specific contours of misogynistic abuse are not directly addressed. The effectiveness of the Act will ultimately depend on implementation. Adequate training of law enforcement and sensitisation of the judiciary will determine whether victims of online gender-based violence feel confident seeking justice. The Nigerian government’s ongoing efforts – such as budgeting for judicial training on digital crimes – are promising, but more work is needed to bridge the gap between law on the books and law in action. Coordination with broader initiatives (educating the public, engaging tech companies, and enforcing anti-GBV laws generally) will enhance the impact.
In conclusion, Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2024 provides a robust foundation for tackling TFGBV and marks progress in the legal response to online abuse. It introduces clearer definitions and maintains protections that, if wielded properly, could significantly curb online violence against women. The Act’s alignment with international frameworks allows Nigeria to be a regional leader in fighting cyber-enabled gender-based violence. To realise this potential, authorities must ensure the law is enforced fairly, victim-centric approaches are strengthened, and gaps are filled through either further legal refinement or complementary policies. With these steps, the Cybercrime Act 2024 can be an effective instrument to make Nigeria’s digital spaces safer and more equitable for all genders.
Sources:
- Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 (as amended 2024), §§23–24 nfiu.gov.ng
- Lex Initiative for Rights, Advocacy and Development, “Online Gender-Based Violence: Who Is Protecting Nigerian Women?,” February 14, 2025, https://liradnigeria.org/online-gender-based-violence-who-is-protecting-nigerian-women
- Harlem Solicitors, “The Menace of Cyberbullying and Cyberstalking in Nigeria,” June 25, 2024, harlemsolicitors.com.
- Al Jazeera (Jonathan Rozen), “Nigeria’s cybercrime reforms leave journalists at risk,” Apr. 20, 2024, aljazeera.com.
- Safeonlineafrica (Vivian Omeh), “Unplugging Oppression: Who’s Really Safe Online in Nigeria?”, July 10, 2025, safeonlineafrica.com.
- Council of Europe, “Nigeria acceded to the Council of Europe Convention on cybercrime,” July 2022, coe.int.
- CEDAW Committee General Recommendation No. 35 (2017) (para. 14) rm.coe.int.
- UNDP, Analysis of legislation related to Technology-Facilitated GBV (Dec. 2024). undp.org
- Additional references: ICLG Cybersecurity 2025 – Nigeria iclg.com News reports on cyberstalking cases harlemsolicitors.com; Nigeria Cybercrimes Act (Amendment) 2024 summary aljazeera.com.
