Empowering Jordan’s Next Generation to Respond to Digital Violence Against Women
From teaching guides to moot courts and podcast studios, a pilot project in Jordan is testing how universities can help future professionals understand, document, argue, report on, and respond to digital violence against women.
Digital violence can begin with a fake account, a private threat, a hacked image, or a rumour shared in a group chat. For women and girls, what starts on a screen can fuel fear, shame, isolation, and distress — and quickly spill into school, work, family life, and public spaces.
Our Salam@ team is working with the Information and Research Center – King Hussein Foundation (IRC-KHF) to bring that reality into university learning. Their focus is future lawyers and journalists, who may one day need to recognize DVAW, document it, argue it, report on it, or respond to it.
This pilot project is turning selected university classrooms into practical learning spaces, from recording studios to simulated courtrooms. Through hands-on experimentation, students are learning to treat DVAW not as an abstract concept — but as a real and complex challenge they may encounter in their future work.
Universities in the support ecosystem
This university pilot is part of a wider effort, supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, to strengthen support for women and girls facing digital violence. The project connects people and organizations working across governance, health, education, and media so they can respond in more informed, coordinated, and effective ways.
Digital violence takes many forms — from online harassment to blackmail, cyberstalking, image-based abuse, coordinated shaming, and other efforts to silence women in public life. These digital harms have real legal, psychosocial, and professional consequences. On a large scale, they push women out of classrooms, newsrooms, civic spaces, and online communities.
For women and girls facing these kinds of attacks, support rarely comes from one place. A survivor may need legal guidance, psychosocial care, help from a trusted educator, safer reporting options, or simply clearer information about what has happened to her.
That is why the project looks beyond any single service or institution. In Jordan, IRC-KHF plays a lead role by translating research into practical tools, connecting institutions with communities of practice, and testing models that can inform future policy and reform.
Universities are a key part of this. Our focus is on students preparing to enter professional life, starting with lawyers and media professionals. These students are beginning to examine how digital harm is understood, investigated, reported, and addressed in their fields.
“We are building a generation of professionals who don’t just learn about digital violence,” says IRC-KHF Director Ayman Halasa. “They are developing the skills and confidence to respond to it in meaningful, practical ways.”
That idea shapes the project’s approach. It does not treat universities as venues for one-off awareness sessions. It recognizes them as long-term entry points for professional formation, practical learning, and stronger responses to DVAW.
The foundation: a modular teaching guide
Announcing the teaching guide: the heads of Isra University and IRC-KHF
Many students encounter DVAW only through general awareness, while faculty lack structured tools for teaching it systematically. That leaves a gap between university learning and professional realities. So we started with a practical question: How can we start filling that gap at universities without waiting for full curriculum reform?
The bedrock has been a pilot University Teaching Guide on DVAW — not a fixed curriculum, but modules that faculty can adapt to their own courses and disciplines. The initial rollout was deliberately small, prioritizing depth over reach: could this kind of learning work in real classrooms?
In November 2024, a small group of faculty from law, media, and IT programs worked with the project’s Community of Practice to co-design the guide. Built for discussion-based, practice-oriented learning, it introduces students to the psychosocial impacts of DVAW, international standards, and Jordan’s Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023. Through case discussions and legal exercises, students think through how digital harm is documented, interpreted, and addressed.
By early 2025, select faculty were testing the guide in their courses at Isra University, Middle East University, and Yarmouk University. Some used it for standalone sessions, while others embedded concepts into broader course content. This flexibility helped build a sense of ownership among educators. And as one Yarmouk professor put it, “We need more and more openness to these kinds of active teaching methods — they illuminate and ease the path for us as academics too.”
That early use offered proof of concept: DVAW could enter university learning without requiring institutions to move at the same pace. It also showed where the guide could grow. Faculty and stakeholders identified opportunities to deepen legal content, better connect cybersecurity and cybercrime frameworks, and coordinate with the Ministry of Higher Education.
That makes the guide more than a classroom resource. As educators continue evolving the tool, it becomes a shared focal point for longer-term integration of DVAW into higher education.
A first test: DVAW research projects
With the teaching guide in place, the project started bringing students more directly into the pilot. The first step focused on final-year law students from Isra University, Middle East University, and Yarmouk University. It was a practical test of academic interest, supervision capacity, and what could reasonably be done within existing university structures.
Together, the students developed eight individual and group graduation projects on the legal and regulatory dimensions of DVAW. Their work examined Jordan’s Cybercrime Law, judicial approaches to online abuse, and the challenges of handling digital evidence. A panel of academic experts and Community of Practice members reviewed the projects, linking student research to wider professional and policy discussions.
The projects demonstrated strong academic engagement. But they also revealed the limits of the research-paper model. Graduation requirements left little room for broader participation or deeper experimentation. Rather than treating that as a setback, the project team used the lesson to adapt.
Drawing on feedback from faculty and students, the project moved toward more applied and profession-specific learning: simulated courtrooms for law students, and podcast production for media and journalism students. The aim was not passive study, but rather applied learning that connects academic training with real professional practice.
Moot court: from textbooks to the bench
In October 2025, Jordanian law students stepped beyond the lecture hall and into a simulated courtroom. There, they tested how DVAW cases could be argued in practice.
The first National Moot Court Competition gave students a realistic case to work through. It centred on “Mariam,” a university student facing digital blackmail, defamation, and fake online accounts. Student teams were assigned prosecution and defence roles through a public draw.
To prepare, students had to work through Jordan’s Cybercrime Law, criminal procedure, digital evidence, survivor impact, and oral advocacy. They also had to think about proof: How is online harm documented? How is evidence challenged? How can legal arguments reflect the human consequences of digital violence?
“This experience helped me see how digital violence cases actually work in practice, not just on paper.” —Raneem Salman, Zarqa University student
This first moot court brought together 35 law students from five universities, alongside faculty members and legal experts. It showed that a low-cost simulation could give students a serious, practical introduction to DVAW cases.
It also helped shape what came next: an exercise in scale. In April 2026, IRC-KHF hosted the Second National Moot Court, profiled in a recent feature article. This edition expanded the model from one day to two, and from five universities to ten. And this time, the event drew formal support from Jordan’s Ministry of Justice, including opening remarks from its Secretary-General.
Podcasting: a tool for advocacy
For media and journalism students, applied learning took a different form. Instead of arguing a case in court, they learned to investigate, explain, and report on DVAW.
This pilot brought together 12 students from media, digital media, and journalism programs at four Jordanian universities. Together, they learned the fundamentals of audio storytelling, research-based scripting, ethical interviewing, and responsible reporting.
But they weren’t just building their production skills. They were developing practical judgment: learning to translate complex and often abstract forms of digital harm into stories that are accurate, accessible, respectful, and grounded in lived experience.
That work led to Behind the Screen, a six-episode podcast series on digital violence and online harm. Students explored harassment in gaming spaces, violence against women journalists, disinformation campaigns, online fraud, digital electoral violence, and digital abuse affecting persons with disabilities.
While deliberately modest in scale, the series still reached more than 78,000 listeners across all digital platforms. Students also reported greater confidence in their ability to research, script, and produce audio content. As one participant reflected, “I learned how to take an idea and develop it into clear, meaningful audio content.”
The podcast pilot tested a model that other universities could adapt. It was low-cost, skills-based, and rooted in tools many media programs already use. By combining technical training with critical reflection on digital violence, it offers a practical template for preparing future media professionals to report on digital harm responsibly and from a rights-based perspective.
The road ahead: selective scale
The key outcome here is not immediate scale. It is a shift in how the next generation of professionals begins to see its role. By grounding DVAW in applied practice, ethical reflection, and technical understanding, universities can help students prepare for the realities they may later face in courtrooms, newsrooms, offices, and public institutions.
That practical focus matters. Professional training already emphasizes judgment: how to weigh evidence, communicate clearly, act ethically, and make decisions under pressure. If DVAW remains only an awareness topic, it risks staying at the margins. When students approach it through practical tasks, it becomes part of how they learn to practise their profession.
Flexibility is also key: universities do not need to adopt the same model or wait for full curriculum reform. A teaching guide can fit into an existing course. A moot court can be run with faculty, legal experts, and a realistic case file. A podcast series can help media students practise responsible storytelling with familiar tools. Each model can stand alone or fit into broader academic and extracurricular programming.
Growth from here will be selective, incremental, and consultative. At every step, it will be shaped by faculty interest, student engagement, institutional readiness, and existing academic requirements. And the aim is not one grand moment of reform, but a phased process that allows universities to adopt, adapt, and sustain these models over time.
By design, this is not a finished solution. It is a tested foundation: a set of practical, low-cost approaches for preparing the next generation to meet DVAW with knowledge, judgment, and skill — before harm is dismissed, mishandled, or left for survivors to face alone.
The President of Middle East University with university staff, SecDev and IRC-KHF team members, and winning competitors from the first moot court contest.
