GAMAG at WSIS+20: Gender Equality and Inclusion in Our Digital Future

Join GAMAG, WACC and partners at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) High Level event.

Objective: To review the Global Digital Compact and to advocate for strengthening of gender equality in the global and national digital ecosystems.

Zoom registration: https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2024/Home/Registration#remote
Then select the session “Gender equality and Inclusion in our Digital Future”. 29 May at 5pm CET

Panelists from WACC, GAMAG, UNAM, IT for Change, META, UNESCO and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences (Jordan)

Context: The Internet, its technologies, the global digital architecture and all elements of local and global tech ecosystems today are still far from being inclusive and empowering for women and girls. A key question raised at the WSIS plus 10 review in 2013 was why the digital space had not lived up to expectations. At the time, new configurations of power had resulted in an information society that was exclusionary, with little place for women and with new forms of misogyny. Gender advocates at the time noted the marginalization of women from the agenda and exclusion from Internet governance processes. The concerns persist today, with further marginalization of women’s rights activists by key global stakeholders from crucial decision-making processes. Women’s rights are being eroded, in an era where a Global Digital Compact (GDC) is proposed as a roadmap for key digital principles globally, to be agreed on during the September 2024 Summit of the Future. Power asymmetries today have exacerbated discrimination and violence against women on the Internet. The 2022 Gender Digital Divide Index Report attests to a deepening of the divide. The Internet, including Artificial Intelligence, have sharpened inequality between women and men. The divide is evident in issues of Internet availability and affordability, digital literacy, participation in online news media, STEM education, online privacy, safety, security and trust, legislation, policy, practices and decision making. In recent times, misinformation, harmful content and sexist hate speech against women, increasing of sexual exploitation and other forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence against women and girls, undermine democracy and human rights.