Empowering Perpetrators and Letting Down Victims? Social Media and Gender-Based Violence in Zimbabwe During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article examines how digital technology, especially social media platforms, shaped the risk of gender-based violence (GBV) in Zimbabwe during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Informed by the social identity model of deindividuation effects theory and based on both primary and secondary sources, it argues that the use of social media influenced GBV in Zimbabwe in both negative and positive ways. The study mainly found that positively, social media was used to raise awareness, report GBV cases, and mobilize social, financial, and emotional support, as well as sharing survival strategies by GBV survivors and those who support them. Negatively, the use of social media empowered online GBV perpetrators by awarding them anonymity. It also promoted and propagated multiple cases of GBV, and perpetuated gender inequality. Another negative effect is that social media was inaccessible to all victims of GBV. The article concludes that the relationship between social media and GBV remains strong and complex. Therefore, there is a need to strengthen the opportunities offered by social media platforms in the fight against GBV and end the Zimbabwean experience during COVID-19 whereby social media empowered the perpetrators at the expense of the victims.