The Digital Literacy Paradox

Digital safety programming across Africa, and specifically in Nigeria, is often built on the widely held assumption that merely equipping women with digital skills will shield them from online violence. This policy brief, based on the report of the TFVAWG-CSEA-AEGIS project, empirically tests that assumption. The findings reveal a paradox with insightful implications for digital development policies and programming. Using configurational methodologies, specifically Crisp-set and Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA and fsQCA), the research reveals that higher digital literacy consistently appears in every pathway leading to TFVAWG, rather than operating as a straightforward protective factor. Hence, constituting a paradoxical situation where the heaviest burden of Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women and Girls (TFVAWG) falls not on the digitally impoverished but on the digitality literate. Digital literacy was found to combine with conditions such as young age and heavy online presence as a reliable pathway to TFVAWG.