The Market for Spyware is Growing

In late 2024, the Citizen Lab published a report on the gendered dimensions of digital transnational repression, calling for better support for victims. Senior researcher and co-author of the report, Noura Aljizawi, speaks to the Fuller Project about the concerning ways gender is still being weaponized to silence women. 

Digital transnational repression refers to the tactics that states use to reach across borders to silence dissent among diaspora members, for example by hacking the phones of victims, or spreading false rumours about them online. 

Gendered transnational repression refers more specifically to the use of digital technologies to target women human rights defenders and activists outside their countries of origin, in which gender is deliberately weaponized as a tool of repression. These attacks often exploit patriarchal norms and gendered stigma, using threats, harassment, or narratives about women’s bodies and sexuality to shame, intimidate, and silence them.

Aljizawi says that autocrats “can find ways to target…women in the movement without even bothering to deploy a lot of resources” by using software to hack their phones or computers. By employing tools like zero-click spyware, or buying information from data brokers, states can surveil and harass women who speak up against them.

Transnational repression can cause intense psychological distress, leading women to withdraw from public life and self-censor in conversations. However, by leaning into their community and relying on others, victims can reframe how they think about the attacks and build resilience. 

“Working with activists and journalists who were targeted in a similar way to me was a healing process,” Aljizawi, who was a victim of gender-based transnational repression, says. “I can turn this paranoia and anger into something more impactful to help other people, reveal these kinds of atrocities, and fight back. The more we open spaces to talk about it, we develop our immune system.”