Credit: UNESCO, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons
By 2030, 30 to 40 million Nigerian women and girls could be directly targeted by AI-generated deepfakes, according to an analysis by Gatefield. The tools to create these attacks already exist and are actively being used. What we’re witnessing is the automation of gendered violence through emerging technologies that have changed how abuse operates at scale.
From Public Figures to Everyday Women
In November 2025, Nigerian singer Ayra Starr became a high-profile victim when an X user weaponized AI to create and circulate fake nude images. Actress Kehinde Bankole faced coordinated digital attacks that “undressed” her online. Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan was targeted with deepfake audio and fabricated video precisely when she publicly alleged harassment against the Senate President. These high-profile cases were widely covered and sparked public outcry, but they tell only part of the story. Countless everyday Nigerian women have faced the same attacks without the visibility, empathy, or support these public figures received.
Ayra Starr
Credit: Capital FM Kenya, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Digital violence operates through accessible tools that have made coordinated abuse faster and cheaper to execute. Reports show that what once required technical skill now happens with simple prompts fed into AI systems like X’s Grok. The pattern is unmistakably gendered. Studies show 90 to 95 percent of deepfake content targets women. In Nigeria specifically, 58 percent of documented online harms target women, exceeding the global average of 38 percent. Technologies marketed as neutral innovation are being deployed as weapons against women’s participation in public life.
Misogyny Infects Every Realm
These aren’t random incidents or isolated cases of bad behavior. They’re organized campaigns using technology to silence, shame, and exclude women from digital spaces. Research from UN Women shows that between 16 and 58 percent of women have experienced technology-facilitated violence, whether it’s cyberstalking, non-consensual image sharing, or coordinated digital attacks. The consequences don’t stay online. They spill into real life through mental health damage, career disruption, withdrawal from public spaces, and in extreme cases, physical threats.
Governments Responsible for Ensuring Women’s Digital Safety
Nigeria lacks the infrastructure to address this crisis. The country has no AI-specific governance framework and has yet to officially recognize how AI enables gender-based violence. As there are very limited digital forensics teams, mapping and managing coordinated harassment campaigns is essentially impossible at the scale in which it occurs. This infrastructure gap amounts to deliberate negligence. Women already face impossible burdens when reporting physical violence in Nigeria, with survivors facing limited access to services and justice in a pervasive culture of impunity. Online violence multiplies these burdens exponentially, while platforms hide behind claims of jurisdictional complexity and law enforcement agencies simply shrug.
The response to Ayra Starr’s case showed what collective action can achieve. Mass reporting, account suspension, and public outcry demonstrated the power of coordinated efforts. But individual mobilization can’t substitute for systemic change. Countries like Mexico have enacted the Olimpia Law, which explicitly criminalizes online gender-based violence. France has passed Sren 2024 legislation that addresses the same issues. This year’s 16 Days of Activism is calling on governments, tech companies, and civil society to coordinate their efforts and take genuine action.
What happened to Ayra Starr, Kehinde Bankole, and Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan illustrates the growing threat of technology-facilitated gender-based violence. This is a human rights crisis that needs legal frameworks, platform accountability, and recognition that women’s digital safety is paramount to their ability to participate in society. When we dismiss this abuse as trivial or write it off as the cost of being online, we’re normalizing a future where 40 million Nigerian women are systematically excluded from digital spaces. That future should be unacceptable.
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