Various kinds of abuses, especially sexual harassment in all its forms, are prevalent in many societies across the world—principally against women. The situation enkindled the #metoo campaign/movement that was launched in 2017.

By the end of 2017, the Me Too (#Metoo) movement had more than half a million tweets and hundreds talking about it on Facebook. The teeming female proponents who joined the campaign through tweets and Facebook comments are only a fraction of the many women offline who may have gone through similar experiences.

A baseline study on Women’s Right Online in Ghana by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), for instance, found that about 40% of the women respondents reported experience in different forms of harassment online with almost 7 out of 10 of those women experiencing the abuses more than once.

A snapshot from Milano’s twitter page

As the online world is largely a reflection of offline realities, a lot of the forms of sexual harassment reported offline are being perpetrated online globally—and Ghana is no exception.

Source: MFWA field data, 2017

As though to corroborate the findings of the study, 2017 recorded a number of online abuses against a number of Ghanaian females which trended on social media for a while. A few of them are detailed below:

Attacks/Abuses against Rashida Black

In July 2017, a nude video of a young woman who was barely an adult (18-years-old) trended. The woman, Rashida Black, had gained popularity in 2016 for another video in which she hurled insults at her boyfriend. This nude video inflamed comments that sought to attack her.

Sampled Facebook comments

While the publisher of the video was unknown, a considerable section of the public seemed to assume that the girl whose privacy had been abused was the one who put the video out. The general public sentiment on the internet over the nude video was against the girl. She was “dirty” “stinking” and “rustic” they claimed. In the end, the poor woman was arrested by the Police to answer questions on why her nude video had gone viral on the internet/social media.

 Revenge Porn against Afia Schwarzenegger

In September, a video of a popular radio and TV personality, Valentina Nana Agyeiwaa (referred to as Afia Schwarzenegger in media spaces) known to be a firebrand and an outspoken person, had been caught in bed with another man trended. The man who took the video, reported to be her husband, threatened to empty the contents of a bottle he claimed was acid on the naked body of the lady in the video. The “revenge” video generated a lot of comments on the Ghanaian cyberspace. Below is a section of comments beneath a post of a local online website which published the story.

Source www.myjoyonline.com

Whilst a few posts sympathized with the victim and chastised her husband for videoing the nakedness of her former wife, many others lambasted her for being a ‘prostitute’ whose cup had run full.  For some, the “loud” TV personality had been silenced.

 Sexist Discrimination against Pepper Dem Ministries

Also in September 2017, Pepper Dem Ministries, an online feminist group launched their activities on Facebook.  They had charged themselves with “unlearning and learning the toxic narratives” against women and establishing a better approach to socialisation in society. Perhaps superannuating the old mantra of “women must only be seen and not heard”, the group caused a lot of ‘traffic’ on the internet.  The internet was awash with many reactions under the hashtag #PepperDem—maybe—owing to their swift, unconventional and radical response to issues which came off as abrasive to many.

The activities of the Pepper Dem group also received a lot of flak on the social media, some of which were complete insults and ad hominem attacks. A London-based Ghanaian blogger called them a bunch of “sex-starved” women who are “unkempt, unintelligent with smelly hair”. https://think.com.gh/pepper-dem-ministries-ladies-unkempt-unintelligent-with-smelly-hair-blogger-chris-vincent/

From the commentator’s Facebook page

Hate Speech against Yvonne Nelson

Then in December 2017, news of Ghanaian actress, Yvonne Nelson, trended. She had kept her pregnancy from the media only to release photos (of her pregnancy and father of her child) after she had given birth. Reactions to the pictures were varied. Some people tagged her as a “husband snatcher” who must be punished by God whilst her child was called an “ugly bastard”.

From the commentator’s Facebook page

A snapshot from the celebrity’s Instagram page

But what do women do when they are abused online? Or from whom do they take refuge when they are harassed?

According to the baseline report by the MFWA, while some of the victims block their harassers, others take caution in what they do online which could actually lead to self-censorship.  However, none of the study respondents reported the online abuses to any security agency. The few who reported did so to some friends and family members. Whereas the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police have received training on online violence against women, they are unable to respond adequately because they lack resources.

The growing phenomenon of transferring abuses and other sexual harassment of women to the online world need to be addressed urgently. Unfortunately, there are no clear guidelines as to the process of reporting online abuses to state security agencies and getting perpetrators duly punished.

Also, as the MFWA’s baseline study shows, a number of the women rights advocacy groups or organisations do not work on women’s rights in online spaces. Maybe, going forward, advocacy against harassment online against women can be intensified by these groups and even the media to help curb/curtail the menace/phenomenon.

More education /sensitization by the media and the National Commission on Civic Education may help in making women conscious of these online threats so they can take precautions. The security agencies may also need to make available information on how these challenges can be reported to them and process with dealing with the perpetrators.

By: Kwaku Krobea Asante

Email: [email protected]

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“We wish him well,” he said in his first public remarks about the claims against ex-White House staff secretary Rob Porter. “He worked very hard.”

Questions are being asked about who in the White House knew what and when about the Porter accusations.

One ex-wife says he gave her a black eye. Another filed a restraining order, she says. Mr Porter, 40, denies it.

Despite the accusations, he received interim security clearance to act as gatekeeper to the US president.

Colbie Holderness alleged Mr Porter punched her in the face on holiday in Florence, Italy

Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Mr Trump said: “We found out about it recently and I was surprised by it but we certainly wish him well and it’s a tough time for him.

“He did a very good job while when he was in the White House.

“And we hope he has a wonderful career and he will have a great career ahead of him.

“But it was very sad when we heard about it and certainly he’s also very sad now.

Mr Trump is seen walking with Mr Porter at the White House in December 2017

“He also, as you probably know, says he’s innocent and I think you have to remember that.”

White House communications director Hope Hicks’ handling of the controversy has reportedly displeased Mr Trump.

She has recently been in a relationship with Mr Porter.

According to CNN, Mr Trump believes the 29-year-old aide put her own interests above the president’s.

According to CBS News, Mr Porter approached White House Counsel Don McGahn in January 2017 to inform him there could be derogatory information in his background check for security clearance.

Without being specific, the aide reportedly said he expected his ex-wives to say unflattering things about him to investigators.

Mr McGahn told him to await the results of the FBI background checks process.

In June 2017, Mr Porter’s preliminary file was sent from the FBI to the White House security office, containing the abuse allegations from his ex-wives.

In September that year, Mr Porter told Mr McGahn he had been interviewed by the FBI a second time, according to CBS.

In November, Mr McGahn received a call from Mr Porter’s ex-girlfriend, Samantha Davis, informing him of physical violence claims against the aide by his former spouses.

Mr McGahn then told White House Chief of Staff John Kelly there was an issue with Mr Porter’s security clearance, though he was vague, reports CBS.

The White House counsel reportedly told Mr Kelly Mr Porter’s ex-wives were saying things the aide denied.

Mr Porter also told Mr Kelly his ex-wives were saying false things about him.

–

Source: BBC

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According to them, sexual harassment and misconduct on campus has become a growing trend, but students do not report such cases for fear of victimization.

At the ‘Speak Up Conference’ organized by the Commission on International Women’s Day, students who have been sexually abused by lecturers shared their sad stories.

Sexually exploitative behaviour, conferring undue favours to influence subordinate staff or students to yield to sexual desires and amorous behaviour between students and teaching staff, are some of the sexual misconducts that the statutes of the University frowns upon.

But Yaa Gyamfua, an executive of the SRC Women’s Commission, believes these rules are often flouted by the very people trusted to uphold it, including the lecturers.
As a result, she said most victims for fear of being victimized, do not report such cases.

“What abuse takes away from you is your dignity; so then you don’t even have much of it left to be going around talking about it in the first place. That accounts for a lot of the reasons why you don’t hear about it (sexual abuse). But truly it happens, a lot of it happens” she stated.

According to her, “For a number of ladies who have approached us, it’s mostly between authorities and students.”

Touching on some other cases of abuse on campus, Gyamfua recalled that “somewhere last semester, someone was raped in between the annexes of Sarbah (Mensah Sarbah Hall) one night when she went to study. Another happened at Athletics Oval some time ago. We just woke up and saw that her clothes had been torn and her panties were left there. I don’t think the girl as at now has been able to show up and report.”

The Chairperson of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee of the University, Prof. Abena Oduro, gave the assurance that female students at the Conference that the University had demoted some lecturers for sexually abusing female students in the past; and will crack the whip on deviant lecturers found culpable.

But the Commission is not satisfied by this assurance. Yaa Gyamfua insists that publishing the full details of deviant lecturers will be deterrent enough to their colleagues in the act.

“When you choose to abuse someone and take away the person’s dignity, then you don’t get to keep yours. So, as and when it happens, I think that we should be able to hear of it. If possible it should be published on the University’s website which will be more shameful, the dailies, as well as the notice boards.”

“We need to know who the perpetrators are. They don’t do it with just one of two people; it’s done to a number of girls. So the publicity alone gives closure to the other girls who are involved perhaps with the same lecturer. Closure in abuse is important for the person to heal. The University should be able to tell us how many lecturers are laid off as and when these things happen. So that we can reduce the rate at which these things happen. I am telling you on authority that it happens almost every day.”

But a final year Political Science major student (name withheld) disagrees with the call. For her, demotion is enough as she fears the stigma affected lecturers will suffer.

“First of all, they wouldn’t be happy if they are demoted. And secondly, I don’t think their details should be put out there because it remains forever. People will get to see it, their children, forever! And it will be out there for everyone and generations to come. I am not sure it will go away. It will be like some kind of stigma not forgetting that the girls could suffer some kind of psychological effects from the harassments they get from these lecturers. But I don’t think that is the right thing to do. Demotion is just perfect, but putting their names out there for me is too much.”

Even though she told Citi News a lecturer at her department has been on her heels since her level 100 days for an amorous relationship, she believes most female students only cry foul after such amorous relationships with their lecturers turn sour, arguing that no lecturer will ever fail any student for denying him sexual gratification.

“If you had no relationship whatsoever with the lecturer and he just comes after you for the first time, you are in the best position to tell him off and nothing is going to happen to you. But the problem is some of the time if not most of the times, you’d find out that the students could have had some amorous relationships with their lecturers; and when things go sour, they come out to say a lecturer harassed them.”
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By: Caleb Kudah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The chairman of the Commons media committee, Damian Collins, said he had “grave doubts” about the effectiveness of its content moderation systems.

Mr Collins’ comments come after the BBC reported dozens of photos to Facebook, but more than 80% were not removed.

They included images from groups where users were discussing swapping what appeared to be child abuse material.

When provided with examples of the images, Facebook reported the BBC journalists involved to the police and cancelled plans for an interview.

It subsequently issued a statement: “It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation.”

Mr Collins said it was extraordinary that the BBC had been reported to the authorities when it was trying to “help clean up the network”.

On its welcome page, Facebook says it does remove obscene material.

“Nudity or other sexually suggestive content” it states are not allowed on the platform.

It encourages users to report inappropriate content via its “report button”.

The US firm says it has improved this system since an investigation by the BBC last year.

That found “secret” groups were being used by paedophiles to meet and swap images.

Information the BBC provided to the police led to one man being sent to prison for four years.

To test Facebook’s claim, the BBC used the report button to alert the company to 100 images which appeared to break its guidelines. They included:

• pages explicitly for men with a sexual interest in children
• images of under-16s in highly sexualised poses, with obscene comments posted beside them
• groups with names such as “hot xxxx schoolgirls” containing stolen images of real children
• an image that appeared to be a still from a video of child abuse, with a request below it to share “child pornography”

Of the 100 images only 18 were removed.

According to Facebook’s automated replies, the other 82 did not breach “community standards”. They included the apparent freeze frame.

Facebook’s rules forbid convicted sex offenders from having accounts.

But the BBC found five convicted paedophiles with profiles, and reported them to Facebook via its own system. None of them were taken down.

“I find it very disturbing, I find that content unacceptable,” said Mr Collins in response.

“I think it raises the question of how can users make effective complaints to Facebook about content that is disturbing, shouldn’t be on the site, and have confidence that that will be acted upon.”

The BBC also showed what it had found to Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England.

“I have been very disturbed by what I have seen, very disappointed that one year on we are still seeing images that are very sexualised, totally in my view unacceptable,” she said.

“The moderation clearly isn’t being effective, I would question whether humans are moderating this, are looking at this, and also I think it is failing to take account of the context of these images.”

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) also voiced concern.

“Facebook’s failure to remove illegal content from its website is appalling and violates the agreements they have in place to protect children,” said a spokeswoman.

“It also raises the question of what content they consider to be inappropriate and dangerous to children.”

The BBC first asked Facebook for an interview about its moderation system in late-2015, and repeated the request following this follow-up investigation.

The social network’s director of policy Simon Milner agreed to be interviewed last week, on condition the BBC provided examples of the material that it had reported, but had not been removed by moderators.

The BBC did so, but was reported to the UK’s National Crime Agency as a consequence.

Mr Collins said this was “extraordinary – because you’re trying to help them clean up their network, from material that shouldn’t be there”.

Facebook later provided a statement.

“We have carefully reviewed the content referred to us and have now removed all items that were illegal or against our standards,” it said.

“This content is no longer on our platform. We take this matter extremely seriously and we continue to improve our reporting and take-down measures.

“It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation.

“When the BBC sent us such images we followed our industry’s standard practice and reported them to Ceop [Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre].

“We also reported the child exploitation images that had been shared on our own platform. This matter is now in the hands of the authorities.”

But the BBC’s director of editorial policy, David Jordan, said the move was surprising.

“The fact that Facebook sent images that had been sent to them, that appear on their site, for their response about how Facebook deals with inappropriate images…the fact that they sent those on to the police seemed to me to be extraordinary,” he said.

“One can only assume that the Facebook executives were unwilling or certainly reluctant to engage in an interview or a debate about why these images are available on the Facebook site.”

A spokesman for the National Crime Agency said he could not confirm or deny an investigation was underway.

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A young lady, who works at the restaurant had her face shoved into a bowl of blended pepper by her Lebanese supervisor on Sunday February 26, and subsequently prevented from leaving the workplace for several hours.

[contextly_sidebar id=”YPqYbGY278gLmEWuBIuCopMrHp7W6LUS”]Marwako in a statement said it deeply regrets the incident and assured that it did not condone the actions of the suspended supervisor.

“Management assures its clients and the general public that it does not and will never condone mistreatment of its workers and therefore condemns in no uncertain terms the alleged assault.”

The statement added that, “Management is cooperating fully with and assisting police to establish the true facts for the purposes of allowing the laws of Ghana to be applied accordingly.”

The said Abelenkpe branch supervisor, Jihad Chaaban, has been interrogated by police and is currently on bail pending further investigations.

Management of Marwako in the meantime said that it is providing “the best of care and ensuring the best interest of the victim.”

It also assured that “it will not sacrifice the reputation it has built for itself over the last twelve years in Ghana as an entity that looks out for its employees who are credited for the best services it renders to its clients.”

Several Ghanaians on social media have expressed outrage over the incident, as some have called for the closure of the restaurant.

Others are however of the opinion that the culprit must be dealt with as an individual, since there are Ghanaian employers who equally abuse locals, and that it is not a matter of race.

Find below the full statement

PRESS STATEMENT BY MARWAKO FAST FOODS ON CASE OF ALLEGED ASSAULT AT ITS ABELENKPE BRANCH

The management of Marwako Fast Foods deeply regrets the alleged incident of assault at its Abelenkpe branch on Sunday February 26, 2017.

The branch supervisor at the centre of the unfortunate development has since been suspended, without prejudice, pending investigations and disciplinary sanctions over the alleged act.

Management assures its clients and the general public that it does not and will never condone mistreatment of its workers and therefore condemns in no uncertain terms the alleged assault.

Management is cooperating fully with and assisting police to establish the true facts for the purposes of allowing the laws of Ghana to be applied accordingly.

The said Abelenkpe branch supervisor, Mr. Jihad Chaaban, has been interrogated by police and is currently on bail pending further processes.

Meanwhile management has become aware that the victim had immediately reported the incident to the Head of Human Resources at the Labadi branch, but this, unfortunately, had not been brought to the attention of management until police sought to arrest said supervisor.

It is understood that HR Department had attempted to resolve issues internally and that explains why said victim reported to work on Monday February 27, 2017.

These attempts at internal resolution were then curtailed by management to allow for disciplinary proceedings as Chaaban was suspended.

Marwako in the meantime is providing the best of care and and ensuring the best interest of the victim, and assures that it will not sacrifice the reputation it has built for itself over the last twelve years in Ghana as an entity that looks out for its employees who are credited for the best services it renders to its clients.

The Chief Executive Officer who is himself a Ghanaian citizen, employing over three hundred of his fellow Ghanaian citizens, is particularly saddened by the incident and commits to getting to the bottom of it.

Signed: Chief Executive Officer

Alhaji Marwan Mohammed

–

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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It comes in the wake of heavy criticism about harassment on its platform and a failure to find a buyer after months of rumours about takeovers.

It has announced three main changes, which will be rolled out in the “coming weeks”.

It includes moves to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them creating new accounts.

Harassment

In a blogpost announcing the changes, Twitter’s vice-president of engineering, Ed Ho, said: “Making Twitter a safer place is our primary focus.

“We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic.

“That’s put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices.

“We won’t tolerate it, and we’re launching new efforts to stop it.”

Abusive

In a tweet last month, chief executive Jack Dorsey promised that it was going to take “a completely new approach to abuse on Twitter, including having a more open and real-time dialogue every step of the way”.

The other changes are:

• safer search results – removing tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and those from blocked or muted accounts

• collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality replies to tweets

Neither of these tools will mean tweets are removed entirely from the platform but users will be able to control whether or not they want to see either in their settings.

In November, Twitter acknowledged a trend towards being “abusive to each other” was growing.

Hateful

In response, it expanded its Mute tool, which enabled people to block certain keywords, phrases and even entire conversations they did not want to see notifications about.

It also said that it was retraining its support teams on its hateful conduct policy and improving internal tools and systems to more effectively deal with hateful speech when it was reported.

In June last year, Twitter updated its block button to make sure that people who used the function could no longer see the tweets from the person they blocked.

Previously, their tweets could still be retweeted by another users into the blocker’s timeline.

Toxic

Twitter has had to address the issue of abuse following a lack of interest from potential buyers.

Google, Apple and Disney were all reportedly interested but walked away from any deal.

There are also questions over how the social network will grow, as it struggles to attract a new audience and make money in the long term.

Nick Thomas, an analyst with research company Ovum, said the changes would be welcome news for those who saw the platform as “an increasingly toxic place on which to engage” but asked if it was a case of “too little, too late”.

He added that the platform’s most high-profile tweeter – President Donald Trump – may be adding to its issues.

“The fact that Twitter is now the preferred communications channel of the most divisive figure in global politics is at best a mixed blessing for the platform,” Mr Thomas said.

“The US’s tweeter-in-chief certainly generates profile for the platform through his regular updates, but those who oppose him consider that his style and tone have given unwanted validation to the unsavoury trolls whose presence makes the site unattractive to other users and advertisers.”

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Source: BBC

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