Toxic Tech? Understanding and Addressing Technology- Facilitated Gender-Based Violence Against Queer Women and Women with Disabilities in Nigeria

What happens when digital platforms built to connect women become instruments of harm? For queer women and women with disabilities in Nigeria, that question is a daily reality. This empirical study documents technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) against two communities that remain under-represented and routinely overlooked in Nigerian online-safety research and policy. The study adopted a mixed-methods design combining surveys, desk review, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. The qualitative components were particularly important because TFGBV in Nigeria is deeply shaped by context, identity, and power. The research sought to understand how survivors interpret, negotiate, and respond to abuse within Nigeria’s broader socio-cultural environment, where homophobia, ableism, and entrenched exclusionary norms often intensify online harm and discourage reporting. The numbers were hard to ignore. 90.5% of queer women and 69.7% of women with disabilities reported at least one form of TFGBV. Cyberbullying, kitoing, and catfishing shaped queer women's experiences; non-consensual intimate image abuse led for women with disabilities, 73.9% of whom said that simply being visible online invited attack. The violence carried a price, affecting employment opportunities of 62.2% of respondents. The system fails these women twice. Platform moderation misses local dialects and cultural context, and reporting tools rarely accommodate the accessibility needs of women with disabilities. Nigerian law compounds the gap: it stays silent on gender-based cyber harms, while the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act deters queer women from reporting at all. The study recommends amending the Cybercrimes Act (2015/2024) and the Nigeria Data Protection Act (2023), and domesticating the Maputo Protocol. Ultimately, protecting all women online depends on knowing which women are harmed, and how. This research provides CPWO’2026 the hard evidence it needs, centering intersectional harm and arguing for safety designed with the communities who carry its heaviest weight.