Bauchi – Sanah Abdullahi Muaz, a university don, has expressed concern over increase rate of violence against women online.

Muaz, a lecturer with Bayero University Kano, said addressing online violence against women requires collective efforts from individuals, corporate bodies, and governments.

Muaz made the statement on Sunday in Bauchi during a 2-day Internet Safety and Security Training of Trainers for Women organized by Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) with support from Association for Progressive Communication.

Muaz from Department of Software Engineering said that the inability of a woman to feel safe online is a great barrier to her freedom.

“Achieving online safety for women takes multiple, concerted strategies by different actors. Social media companies need to take proactive steps to ensure their space does not enable these acts”.

She charged government at all levels to include online violence against women as part of their plans to end violence against women.

“We need to see this as a larger barrier for women and girls in exercising the full range of their human rights because the use of internet and its facilities for every woman across the globe is inevitable.”

Also speaking, Yunusa Zakari Ya’u, the Executive Director of CITAD, said Internet has created a new regime of rights that citizens have to demand for.

He advised women to always be cautious and avoid sites that could be harmful to their privacy.

The participants were trained on different internet safety tools which include malware and viruses, safe browsing, basic safety tools, safe mobiles, privacy issues among others.