WSIS – GAMAG

Gender equality and inclusion in #OurDigitalFuture

We advocate for a New Gender Deal for WSIS+20.

a. Calling on all relevant actors – the UN system, governments, media and digital communication companies, and civil society movements – to support the inclusion of a new gender deal in the digital ecosystem.
b. Interrogating existing norms and reinforces mechanisms to strengthen gender equality within the technology sector.
c. Implementing actions designed to respond to urgent identified needs, such as:
i. ensuring universal and safe access of women and girls to the digital ecosystem;
ii. promoting regulatory and co-regulatory mechanisms at national, regional and international levels;
iii. implementing frameworks for algorithmic transparency, incorporating methods such as third party audits;
iv. promoting digital literacy programmes with a gender component;
v. encouraging efforts by women’s organisations in using digital media and online spaces to amplify their stories;
vi. ensuring safe conditions for women journalists and human rights defenders; and,
vii. tackling online and offline gender-based harassment and violence against women and girls, gagging clauses and consequent immunity from the law.
d. Urging the international community to recognise the centrality of these issues in achieving gender equality in the 21st century.

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

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.