Women Empowerment and Gender Based-Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Comparison between Scientific Research and Social Views from Twitter

Yao Robert Djogbenou, Département de Démographie, Université de Montréal
Judith Donang, University of Cape Town
Aristide Romaric ARB Bado, Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS)/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique (CNRST)

Various studies have focused on women’s empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa and its relationship to women’s and child wellbeing, and especially on gender-based violence. However, some of these studies have not shown any significant relationship between women’s empowerment and the dependent variables, especially in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we try to assess how lay people freely discuss about empowerment in their discussion and compare their discussion with what is found in scientific publication. Firstly, 29088 articles from a systematic review related to women’s empowerment were searched and extracted in PubMed between 2010 and 2018. Secondly, using the Twitter REST API, over 17980 tweets in English on feelings and concerns of women’s empowerment were gathered in 2018. Using sentiment analysis and topic model, preliminary results show that 53% of positive sentiment compared to 43% for negative sentiment were expressed in the tweets about women's empowerment and gender-based violence in sub-Saharan Africa.