By Mustapha Salisu
Twenty Women Human Rights Defenders in Kano State have completed a two-day digital safety and online protection training organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Development, with support from the Association for Progressive Communications.
The training was organised under CITAD’s “Strengthening Digital Safety and Collective Resilience of Women Human Rights Defenders” project to equip women rights defenders, journalists and advocates with skills to protect themselves and their work from digital threats.
The Project Lead, Amina Khalid, said the training was designed to help participants understand emerging digital risks and adopt practical measures to protect their accounts, devices, communications and sensitive information.
She said, “The training is designed to equip women human rights defenders, journalists and advocates with practical tools to protect themselves and their work from the growing digital threats they face.”
Khalid added that CITAD had earlier trained 40 women human rights defenders and journalists from Bauchi and Jigawa states during a similar programme held in Dutse, Jigawa State.
She said participants in the Kano training were drawn from women involved in human rights defence, advocacy, journalism and community mobilisation.
According to her, the increasing use of digital platforms has exposed women human rights defenders to threats such as phishing, account hacking, identity theft, malware, surveillance, doxxing, cyberstalking, impersonation and misinformation.
The training sessions covered account hacking, device theft, spyware, online surveillance, social engineering, online harassment, impersonation, image-based abuse and preservation of digital evidence.
Participants were also trained on secure communication, including end-to-end encryption, secure email, file encryption and safe cloud storage.
A major highlight of the training was the introduction of Reportrix, CITAD’s secure multilingual digital reporting platform for gender-based violence, misinformation and digital rights violations.
The participants were encouraged to use the platform to report digital safety breaches and other rights-related concerns affecting their communities.
Some participants, including Hidaya Salisu Ahmad, Zulaikha Danjuma and Samira Adnan, said the training had improved their understanding of digital risks and how to respond to them.
They said they had learnt that digital safety goes beyond strong passwords to include secure communication, device protection, privacy awareness and proper response to digital incidents.
CITAD said the training was also aimed at strengthening collective resilience among women human rights defenders so they could anticipate threats, respond to attacks and continue their advocacy safely.
The organisation said the participants were expected to share the knowledge gained with their organisations and communities across Northern Nigeria.