Women Pulling Out of the Technological Gap
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Aug 25 (IPS) When she gets up in the morning, Ghadeer Malek,
a young Palestinian feminist activist, checks her Facebook page to keep up
on new developments and messages linked to her work.
Her daily routine illustrates a growing trend among young women, who are
turning more and more to the latest technological tools, although that use
is still incipient, according to experts taking part in the Aug. 23-27
World Youth Conference in the city of León, 200 km north of the
Mexican capital.
During a panel on "Empowerment of young women by means of the
innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)",
delegates of a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) shared
their experiences Tuesday
"Girls, teenagers and young women are less familiar with the new
communication techniques," Inés Alberdi, executive director of
UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women, now part of UN
Women), told IPS.
"The question of equal opportunities is a key issue for the future
autonomy of young women, and it's a serious problem that they
aren't on an equal footing with men, in terms of use and knowledge
of, and familiarity with, the new technologies," said Alberdi.
The conference organised by the Mexican government, which has brought
together some 2,500 young people from around the world, will end Friday
with a declaration urging the United Nations to promote more policies
targeting this segment of the population.
The United Nations declared 2010 International Youth Year.
"Technology can help women change the status quo," said Abby
Blechman Goldberg, gender director for Latin America and the Caribbean of
the U.S.-based Digital Democracy.
In Haiti, where a January earthquake claimed at least 220,000 lives,
Digital Democracy is working with women to combat what the NGO describes
as "an epidemic of rapes in post-earthquake camps."
The project involves the use of mobile phones and digital cameras by
women, to report incidents of violence, communicate with each other, and
respond to attacks.
Malek said her organisation, the Association for Women's Rights in
Development (AWID), is focusing on supporting activism.
In her presentation on the panel, she added that in AWID's Young
Feminist Activism programme, they have used the new technologies to
network, share ideas and build visions "in a strategic manner,"
rather than merely spreading around information.
There are an estimated 180 million internet users today in Latin America,
amounting to a penetration rate of around 30 percent, according to
Tendencias Digitales, comScore and Google. Women represent upwards of 45
percent of all cybernauts in the region.
Ninety-four percent of the region's web denizens use one of the
social networking sites, and 82 percent have a Facebook or Twitter
account, with Venezuelans leading the pack. Facebook has 49 percent of
users of such sites in the region, and Mexico has the largest number of
Facebook accounts.
In 2007, five institutions — UNIFEM, the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs (NDI), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) —
created the International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics (iKNOW
Politics).
The network is described as "an online workspace designed to serve
the needs of elected officials, candidates, political party leaders and
members, researchers, students and other practitioners interested in
advancing women in politics."
Piyoo Kochar, network facilitator of iKNOW Politics, said she was
confident in the network's ability to help women connect to politics,
so that they won't feel intimidated and won't feel that
"politics is a dirty word."
Worldwide, only 18 percent of parliamentarians, 16 percent of government
ministers and seven presidents are women.
The growing popularity of the internet led UNIFEM to expand Say NO –
UNiTE to End Violence against Women, a global call to action launched in
2007 to collect at least one million signatures.
After gathering more than five million signatures and gaining the support
of hundreds of NGOs, 70 governments, 200 cabinet ministers and 700
legislators around the globe, UNIFEM launched the second phase of the
campaign last year, to record specific actions to end violence against
women.
Urjasi Rudra, the coordinator of the campaign, said it has grown into a
platform for communications and advice, while serving as a showcase for
the work being done by organisations and activists across the planet.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, Cuidemos el Voto, an independent organisation set up
to monitor elections, adapted and translated into Spanish Ushahidi, a
platform created in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007
presidential election to allow people to anonymously report violent
incidents.
The platform makes it possible to gather information via text messages,
email, tweets or the web and visualise it by creating a map or timeline.
Cuidemos el Voto will use it to report irregularities or fraud in
Mexico's elections.
When something dramatic occurs, the greatest possible amount of
information is needed, said Juliana Chebet Rotich, co-founder of Ushahidi,
which means "testimony" in Swahili. "If for any reason your
voice is silenced, the internet offers many tools, to be able to tell what
we see and what is happening."
Cuidemos el Voto has received reports from NGOs and individual citizens on
stuffing of ballot boxes and vote-buying in previous elections.
In Malek's view, the challenges include the languages used, and
access — especially in rural communities — to training and use of ICTs,
so that women become not only users of social networking sites or bloggers
but also software developers and programmers.
"The biggest challenge is making sure that all groups of young women,
who are often marginalised and face greater disadvantages, especially in
developing countries, acquire these skills and capacities in order to
access these technologies, for the sake of empowerment," Alberdi
said.
