Qualitative Dataset
Beginning in October 2025, the monitoring team identified 160 social media accounts for observation,
including:
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76 Arabic-language accounts
84 Kurdish-language accounts
These pages represented a diverse sample including:
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women candidates’ accounts
political actor accounts news and media outlet accounts
satire and commentary pages
community and tribal pages
The aim was to capture the broader ecosystem of online discourse surrounding women candidates
rather than focusing on one stakeholder group or account typology.
From this monitored dataset, the research team identified posts containing technology-facilitated
gender-based violence (TFGBV) and hate speech targeting women candidates.
The qualitative dataset included:
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137 posts from the Arabic-language context
83
posts
from
the
Kurdish-language
context
These posts were analyzed using a custom classification framework developed by the Safa
Project, which categorizes different forms of online gender-based violence, ranging from
incitement and harassment to neutral discourse. (see table 5)
In addition, the report includes a case study on the narratives surrounding candidate withdrawals.
For this component:
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16 accounts were monitored
17 posts related to the withdrawal of women candidates from the electoral process were
analysed
from
these
pages
Although withdrawal from electoral competition is a legal right, posts frequently manipulated the act
of withdrawal, using it as a pretext for harassment, ridicule, defamation, and the delegitimization of
women candidates.
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