Defending the Digital Frontline: Feminist Strategy Against Gender-Based Violence

By Senamile Madlala

In South Africa, countless women continue to experience sexual violence in a society where the justice system frequently fails to offer meaningful redress. For many, reporting the violence leads not to justice but to traumatisation, disbelief, and inaction. Faced with these systemic barriers, women have turned to digital platforms to name their experiences and seek solidarity. But speaking out online has come at a cost. Instead of being protected for their courage, women are increasingly met with threats of defamation suits, protection orders, or social backlash. This response exposes a deeper problem: when the legal system fails to protect survivors, it often ends up protecting the reputations of abusers instead. This piece explores how speaking out online has become both a tool of survival and a form of protest, and why it is critical to legally protect women’s right to do so. One of the cases that ISLA has intervened in is the Gallie v Mdlekeza matter.

In the Gallie v Mdlekeza case, the Applicant is appealing a judgment made against her in 2020 where the perpetrator (Mdlekeza) has filed a defamation claim relating to her allegation of sexual assault made on Twitter. Ms Gallie also made a counterclaim which was dismissed. In this case, the Court interpreted the survivor’s delayed disclosure of the alleged assault as undermining her credibility, without adequately engaging with the nuanced and often deeply personal barriers that can prevent survivors from reporting abuse promptly. In addition, the Court found that Gallie had exaggerated what occurred in her tweets and ruled that the tweets were published intentionally, wrongfully, and with knowledge that they would cause harm. On 2 December 2021, Gallie petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal. On 24 March 2022, before the Honourable Justices Van der Merwe and Mbatha, the Supreme Court of Appeal ordered that the leave to appeal is granted to the Full Court of the Western Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa.

This case is a critical opportunity to advance the feminist legal principles that ISLA has championed across the continent. It builds directly on our work in Kenya, particularly in the Wambui Mwangi v Tony Mochama matter, where ISLA intervened as amicus to argue that sexual violence is a form of discrimination, and that the misuse of defamation law to silence survivors undermines both access to justice and freedom of expression. In that case, we highlighted the systemic barriers women face in reporting sexual violence and the essential role digital platforms have come to play in seeking redress.

In South Africa, where deeply rooted gender inequality continues to undermine the rights of women and girls, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) often find the formal justice system inaccessible, retraumatising, and ineffectual. As a result, many women have turned to digital platforms to speak out, seek solidarity, and demand accountability.

This shift to online disclosures is not accidental, it is a direct response to the failures of our justice system. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) reported that in the 2023/2024 period, over 33,000 sexual offences were reported to Thuthuzela Care Centres, but only 1,366 convictions were secured. Even these figures are misleadingly optimistic, as the NPA’s “finalised” cases include dockets that were closed without prosecution. The attrition rate remains alarmingly high, and women are often discouraged from reporting due to fear, stigma, and institutional inaction.

In this context, speaking out online becomes not only a form of resistance but a means of survival. Movements like #MeToo and South Africa’s own #AmINext have shown that digital expression allows survivors to reclaim agency and expose patterns of abuse that formal mechanisms consistently fail to address. Yet, women who name their abusers online often face swift legal backlash, including defamation suits and protection order applications, weaponizing the law to silence and intimidate.

As feminist legal advocacy organisations like ISLA have noted, this weaponisation of defamation law contradicts the very essence of justice. South African courts have increasingly recognised this tension. In LW v KCA, the Court affirmed that simply identifying someone as an abuser does not constitute harassment, especially in the context of widespread gender-based violence. Similarly, in Segerman v Peterson and Booysen v Dolley, courts have shown a willingness to protect survivors’ right to speak, even in the absence of formal criminal charges.

This growing judicial awareness is also reflected globally. In Mobashar Jawed Akbar v Priya Ramani (India), Muller c/ Brion (France), and Migunov v Fyodorova (Russia), courts have upheld women’s rights to speak publicly about sexual harassment and abuse, recognizing that such speech serves the public interest and promotes accountability. These decisions underscore that freedom of expression, dignity, and freedom from violence are intertwined rights, particularly for women living in patriarchal societies.

South Africa’s constitutional framework recognises the importance of balancing freedom of expression with the right to dignity. However, when survivors are silenced through retaliatory legal actions, this balance is disrupted. As ISLA argues, a feminist, context-sensitive approach is required, one that views public disclosures of abuse not as reputational attacks, but as legitimate responses to structural injustice.

Protecting women’s freedom to speak out online is essential not only to individual healing but to our collective pursuit of justice. Courts must resist applying defamation and harassment laws in a way that reinforces silence and impunity. Instead, legal standards should evolve to reflect the lived realities of survivors and the urgent need for truth-telling in the face of systemic violence.

As the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has noted, “Women’s voices are suppressed, controlled or punished… by laws, policies and discriminatory practices.” If South Africa is to truly combat gender-based violence, then we must also protect the platforms where survivors are finally being heard.

The South African context echoes many of those same challenges. By supporting survivors who speak out online, this case allows us to push for the development of legal standards that affirm the right to speak out about sexual abuse, even in the absence of formal criminal proceedings, and to ensure that courts adopt a survivor-centred, equality-driven interpretation of defamation and harassment law. It is a chance to reinforce that survivors’ speech is not only constitutionally protected but vital to dismantling the silence that enables gender-based violence.

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