Between media silence and violence that is still too little documented, the realities experienced by Senegalese women struggle to find their place in the public sphere.

To fill this gap, the Mousso.sn information platform, officially launched this Friday, March 6th at the Babacar Touré Press House, intends to "bring out of the shadows topics mainly concerning women through local, useful and accessible information".

Indeed, this new platform aims to better document issues related to women in Senegal and to make visible realities often absent from media coverage. According to Fatoumata Bernadette Sonko, a lecturer and researcher and one of the founders of Mousso.sn, women still appear very little in the media outside of news stories or profiles of figures who already have a recognized social status.

"We rarely talk about the diverse lives of women on a daily basis," she stressed, believing that this media invisibility partly reflects the social organization.

“We are in a society built on patriarchal foundations. The place that women occupy in society is often the same as that found in the media,” she explained, noting that this configuration contributes to keeping women in a marginal position in the public sphere.

The launch ceremony also featured a panel dedicated to domestic violence and the media's treatment of this violence, presented as the antechamber to femicides.

During her speech, Fatoumata Bernadette Sonko revisited the mechanisms that lead to this extreme violence.

According to her, femicide constitutes the most extreme stage of violence against women and rarely results from an isolated act. "Femicide is not accidental. It often stems from a process marked by repeated violence, fear of denouncing, or even a form of individual and collective blindness," she explained.

The journalist points out that in 2025, nearly twenty women were killed by their partners, according to cases reported in the press. This figure could be an underestimate, as many situations are not always identified or documented as femicides.

For her, it is essential to pay more attention to the mechanisms of domestic violence that can lead to these tragedies. "Understanding these mechanisms would make it possible to break this process and prevent femicides," she argued.

Through the Mousso.sn information platform, its initiators hope to contribute to a better visibility of women's experiences and journeys, while encouraging more in-depth media coverage of gender issues in Senegal.