Foundation launches initiative to track cyber bullying of women

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Godshield Kanjal Journalism Foundation (GKJF) has launched an initiative to track cyber bullying of single Nigerian women by the “Alpha Male Movement.”

The Founder of the foundation, Godshield Kanjal, told newsmen in Calabar on Friday that there was an emerging trend of bullying of women on the internet by some group of pseudo social media account operators under the aegis of “alpha males.”

Kanjal said that the Foundation had developed a tracker codename: “GBV Tracker” to track this group of “faceless” men.

“The rate of violence against women by this group of “faceless” men is becoming alarming.

“Some GBV Tracker volunteers will be trained to track and monitor these social media accounts.

“And these volunteers will in turn report them or call on the public to sign petitions against such accounts for its complete ban,’’ he said.

According to the founder, some of the social media accounts advise men never to consider women who are above 33 years for marriage.

“They advise the men to only have sexual intercourse with these women and dump them. This is bad and condemnable.

“This is the highest form of cyber gender-based violence. Once you log into Facebook, you will see different pages of men age-shaming single women and single mothers.

“One of the Facebook accounts in the forefront of this ugly trend has a pseudo name known as Allakaduna Nzeogwu.

“Allakaduna has raised an army of men who are his ardent supporters and followers, who bash and mock aging single ladies every day,’’ he said.

Kanjal said that these alpha males assume single women from the 33-year age bracket are running out of their biological clock, adding that this was, however, untrue.

“Why put pressure on these innocent single women?

“I know a large number of single women who may fall in this age bracket, these women have been thrown into severe depression and they are going through low esteem because of the bullying by these men.

“Who sets the standard that a woman must marry when she is younger than 30?” the NGO founder queried.

The foundation held that it would collaborate with gender advocates and other women-focused organisations to achieve the aim of its initiative.