Our Stay Safe Online campaign reaches a million people

The key messaging from our Stay Safe Online awareness campaign has now made more than one million impressions. 

As part of our Cyber Sisters Project, the social media campaign features a series of warning posts and an animation about the dangers faced by women and girls online. It tells the story of a young girl, Dilan, who is targeted by a man she meets on social media and subjected to a blackmailing attempt. You can watch the video at the bottom of the page..

Our Cyber Sisters project aims to protect women and girls from online abuse while actively increasing their participation in the digital world. It is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office through Cordaid as part of the ‘Women's Voices First’ programme, which supports female-led organisations to advance the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Iraq. 

Many cyber-crimes also relate to the ‘dishonouring’ of women and girls. In a 2016 report by the Middle East Research Institute on online violence in Iraqi Kurdistan, researchers stated that “internet and mobile phone usage has contributed to the circulation of rumour and a strong appetite for gossip and desire to ‘dishonour’.” It added that the aim of cyber violence is to place women “under a system of control, surveillance, attack and extreme fear,” and stressed that cyber attackers want to cause “permanent dishonour as well as disgrace, which can lead to murder.”

The project will also see our Cyber Sisters lead training for 500 other women and girls on how they can protect themselves online. These awareness sessions will cover topics such as the risks of cyberbullying and intimidation, online stalking, grooming and trafficking, as well as misinformation, self-harm, radicalisation and extremism, plus safe gaming and social media.

Below you can see the key messaging which, with the video, have now made more than a million impressions in the region, across social platforms including Facebook and Instagram.

We believe these are such serious issues, and hope that our campaign helps many women and girls stop and think carefully about their safety when navigating the online world.

Watch our campaign animation here…