By Edwin Wanjawa and Dommie Yambo-Odotte
Tech-facilitated intimate partner violence is rapidly becoming one of the most pervasive and least visible forms of abuse affecting Kenyan women and girls. As phones, mobile money, and social media become central to everyday life, they are also being weaponised by abusive partners to monitor, control, and intimidate.
For many survivors, the first sign of digital control begins with phone monitoring. Partners routinely demand access to messages, call logs, WhatsApp chats, and deleted items—often justified as “transparency.” This surveillance pushes women into self-censorship, deleting chats, avoiding colleagues, and living in fear of misinterpretation.
Tracking apps deepen this control. Abusers secretly install spyware or “phone finder” tools, allowing them to track a woman’s movements in real time. Survivors describe partners showing up unexpectedly at workplaces, markets, or social events, turning technology into a means of stalking and restricting movement.
Password control is equally destructive. Many Kenyan women are forced to surrender phone, social media, and M-Pesa PINs. This often results in economic abuse—partners tracking expenses, reversing transactions, or blocking savings. Social media accounts are monitored or controlled fully, silencing their digital presence.
Threats of leaking intimate photos have become a powerful tool of coercion. Images shared in trust—sometimes even fabricated threats—are used to silence women, keep them in abusive relationships, or force compliance. In a society where a woman’s perceived sexual reputation can be used against her, these threats carry immense psychological weight.
On social media, abusers extend their surveillance: policing followers, comments, likes, and even the timing of replies. Ordinary digital interactions become sources of conflict, pushing many women offline and cutting them off from opportunities and support networks.
From a DTM perspective, addressing TF-IPV requires survivor-centred reporting—listening to lived experiences, avoiding victim-blaming, highlighting legal and institutional gaps, and promoting digital safety for women and girls. It also demands challenging the cultural norm that frames jealousy and surveillance as “love,” rather than as violence.
Technology is not the problem; coercive control is. As Kenya becomes increasingly digital, recognising and responding to TF-IPV is essential to protecting the autonomy, dignity, and safety of women and girls.
Edwin Wanjawa is the Programmes Associate, DTM and Dommie Yambo-
Odotte is the Executive Director and Producer, DTM
