Today, being online is becoming a part of our day-to-day life, while cyber attacks globally increased by 125% through 2021, and increasing volumes of cyber attacks continued to threaten women and girls in 2022.
Women are the most affected by cybercrimes, for instance, 60% of girls and adolescents in the world with access to the Internet have been victims of virtual violence, at least once.
Ensuring our strategy is evolving from a plan to strategic implementation, is our priority, as one of Fe-Male’s strategic plans, is contributing to building a safe and abuse-free digital media world, Fe-Male in collaboration with Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) Lebanon and Syria, held a series of three training and workshops on digital safety for women journalists, women political activists and human rights defenders.
Around 35 Participants from Beirut and its suburbs learned about the Intersectionality of Digital Safety and feminist activism, in addition to how to protect themselves in online spaces, and deal with cyberbullying and online gender-based violence.
Leaving no one behind, Fe-Male tirelessly works to include as many women as possible in accessing information and feminist knowledge. In another collaboration with Deutsche Welle (DW), we delivered two training targeting 18 women journalists living in Beqaa and Tripoli about digital security and safety at our centers.
Cyber attacks could be in many forms ranging from inserting Trojans and violating privacy to blackmailing, hijacking the networks, and stealing from others’ bank accounts. Although preventing them sometimes could be very technical and costly, they could mostly be prevented by changing the behaviors of the users.
In this context, Nadine Mowaad a gender and digital rights expert delivered an intensive theoretical landscape on the importance of awareness in the digital world and explained what cyber security from feminist lenses is, in addition to explaining why it is urgent for women to engage in technology.In parallel Samar Hallal from Smex for defending and advancing digital rights, went in depth in the practical part and explained how attacks usually happen and what practical measurements can be taken for protection and more privacy.
Because of the nature of cybercrimes, anyone using online space could be susceptible to them. Therefore, digital safety is important for anyone, and awareness of it is crucial for every end user to prevent the escalation of cybercrimes in our day-to-day life.