“The Internet has helped us to break barriers in terms of language, borders, you know, to be able to understand (…) The internet is a powerful tool of our time.” Ugandan journalist and activist Rosebell Kagumire scrolls through her Twitter timeline in search of new issues for the website “AfricanFeminism.com”. She curates the website, which focuses on giving women in Africa a voice: “That’s why my work is around documenting African women’s realities, but also celebrating African women’s achievements.” Rose collaborates with around 30 other authors across Africa, who use the platform to document their struggle for women’s rights.
Rosebell Kagumire started writing for different national and international online media outlets from the age of 18. Protecting women from abuse and violence has always been one of her main concerns: “The realities of African women and girls is still appalling in so many different ways that we are still far away from finding out ways to a gender equal community as different communities on this continent.”, Kagumire explains in an interview for DW. Women are harassed in broad daylight, in their offices and families. Often, the perpetrators are actually relatives, says Kagumire: “These are relatives within your families. So girls are not free and they are not, you know, protected within the homes. (…) It’s very important that we establish what safety means for an African girl, for African women. So, as long as we have so many threats to women’s safety and well-being, we cannot actually develop as a continent. We cannot take off.”
