Uyo Iban Amplifier Initiative Flags Off 16-Day Campaign Against Digital Violence Targeting Women Environmental Defenders
By Ekemini Simon
The Uyo Iban (Voices of Women) Amplifier Initiative has launched an intensive 16 Days of Activism campaign aimed at combating the rising wave of digital violence against women environmental defenders across the Niger Delta.
The campaign was unveiled in a press release on Monday under the global theme “UNiTE to End Digital Violence Against All Women and Girls” with a localised sub-theme: “Protecting Women Environmental Defenders from Digital Violence: Safeguarding Voices for Climate and Environmental Justice.”
Tagged “No Digital Violence, No Environmental Silence.”, the campaign seeks to draw national attention to the growing cases of cyberbullying, harassment, online threats, intimidation, and smear attacks targeted at women who challenge environmental degradation, climate injustice, extractivism, and corporate abuses in their communities.
According to the organisation, women who publicly oppose pollution, land grabbing, deforestation, and harmful corporate practices increasingly face coordinated digital assaults designed to silence their activism. These attacks, the group warned, not only threaten the safety and mental well-being of these women but also weaken grassroots environmental struggles that depend on their leadership and mobilising power.
Coordinator of the initiative, Okoho Ene, described digital violence as a dangerous tactic used to suppress the voices of women advocating for environmental and climate justice.
“Digital violence has become a strategic tool to silence women who stand up for their communities and the environment. When women environmental defenders are attacked online, it is not just their voices that are endangered, but the future of our land and the safety of generations to come,” she stated.
As part of the campaign, Uyo Iban Amplifier Initiative will roll out community dialogues, awareness drives, and targeted advocacy engagements to encourage safe digital practices and enhance protective structures for women activists. The programme will also seek improved reporting channels, stronger institutional interventions, and accountability frameworks to curb digital abuse.
The organisation plans to build solidarity networks that provide support for women defenders who experience online attacks, emphasising that the fight against digital violence is fundamental to sustaining environmental justice movements.
The Initiative called on government agencies, civil society groups, tech companies, traditional institutions, the media, and the public to take collective action to end digital violence against women environmental defenders. It noted that attacks on women activists in digital spaces pose a direct threat to environmental justice, community resilience, and long-term sustainable development.
Meanwhile, Uyo Iban Amplifier Initiative is a women-led organisation committed to amplifying the voices of rural and marginalised women advocating for environmental justice, gender equality, and community resilience through advocacy, research, capacity building, and storytelling.