Session 1: Ensuring meaningful connectivity to close the gender digital divide and promoting gender transformative technology design, development and deployment

 

Speaker: Neth Daño, Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group)

To bridge the gender digital divide, it is imperative to address the root causes of the “lack of access” to digital technologies and the underpinning power and system inequalities.  Meaningful connectivity will only be achieved if the ever-widening development divide between the North and South, between rural and urban population, and between men and women that are due to persistent social and cultural norms and patriarchal structures that allow for and perpetuate men’s control over women’s access to technology  – are addressed.  Making digital devices affordable is meaningless to the 500 million people in Asia-Pacific who go hungry each day, have no access to basic health services, medicines, basic education and social protection, and have no access to electricity.  Digital transformation will not vanish structural problems.  It is non-negotiable that improving the living conditions of those who are Left Behind as the international community has committed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development must remain as top priority of governments.

Digital technologies should not be taken as a given or as a default.  A fundamental approach to close the gender divide in technology is to recognize, promote and enable the capacities,  innovations and knowledge systems of women, especially in local and indigenous communities.  Digitalization is just one of the many options that include technological, social and structural solutions that should be provided to those impacted to appropriately address specific situations and needs as decided by them.  Top-down imposition of digital technologies from outside will only exacerbate existing inequalities and power imbalances between classes, race and ethnicity, between men and women, and gender.  

Meaningful connectivity should look into the physical and resource costs of digitalisation. As we talk about connecting the unconnected especially rural and indigenous women to address the digital gender divide, let us not lose sight that production of smart digital tools and building the required infrastructures to make digitalization possible requires extraction of minerals and rare earths which are not coincidentally mostly found in lands and territories of local and indigenous communities whose rights are often sacrificed in their defense of land and the environment.  The land needed to house the servers that power the cloud for data and machine learning databases, the massive amount of energy required to run these machines, and the immense amount of water needed to cool down servers to keep them running 24/7 involves indelible carbon footprints and would directly compete with food production as the world grapples with the impacts of the climate crisis. All these add to the multiple burdens that women faced in their daily lives which are barely talked about in the midst of obsession over digitalisation as the solution to every problem.

CSOs around the region have offered models and lived experiences of working with women in promoting territorial markets, conservation of genetic resources, protecting the environment and providing sustainable livelihoods utilizing appropriate and accessible technologies and local and traditional knowledge systems that ensure local control over resources, knowledge and data.

 

Speaker: Kabita Bahing, Body and Data, Nepal and RESURJ

As the notion of development has been gearing towards digitalization even grounded in internet and digital innovations, its high time to recognize its multi-layered implication and impacts in Global south and beyond on fostering gendered digital divide and widening the missing links.     

Drawing attention to urgency and need of inclusive, intersectional perspective and lens of margin to unpack the scaffolds of gender digital divide; accessibility, affordability and sustainability of women, girls and queer persons with disabilities, rural and women belonging to ethnic and indigenous diversity, gender divers communities, class and sexuality, and other systematically marginalized groups who are not able to meaningfully access and practice the digital tools and products in digital transformation process. 

Further, lack of accessibility in digital technologies is posing a huge barrier for inclusion of people with disabilities and communities remained in margin in digital innovation and transformation and should be recognized and addressed accordingly.  

Therefore there is no alternative to accept the existing patriarchal narrative and systematic power domination and social complexities and urgency to end gender digital divide for the sustainable, just and inclusive tech and innovations. 

Government and national and international actors must recognize, respect that development justice and intersectional perspectives to be an important approach to digitalization ensuing to not exclude anyone behind. 

In respect to that, we strongly recommend to:

  • Ensuring free, accessible, affordable and appropriate access to Internet, digital tools and resources for everyone by developing autonomous and community based infrastructure that is not controlled by Big Tech, government resource allocation and adequate interventions to increase digital literacy, enhancing skills and capacities and  accelerating empowerment of women, girls, gender-diverse people and other marginalized groups in all extent. 

Similarly, 

  • Implement people centric laws and policies for global tech companies to provide access to free connectivity to communities; ensuring internet to be a public good and access should not be restricted on the basis of cost, policies by tech companies, government, adequate speed and guarantee access to appropriate devices, accessible language, accompanied with bodily integrity and data sovereignty and engagement of civil society in policy making and governing process around access.

 

Session 2: Session 2: Fostering inclusive education in the digital age and promoting women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers

 

Speaker: Rhea See, She Loves Tech

In today’s highly digital world, STEM has become without a doubt critical to sustainable social and economic growth. However, the unequal participation between genders, especially those who have been left furthest behind, is causing a loss of talent, perspectives and innovation, negatively impacting larger societal progress. Across Asia and the Pacific, addressing the gender gap in STEM means first dismantling deeply-rooted and systemic social, cultural, economic and psychological barriers.

With this, we urge Member States to:

  • Reframe approaches to gender equality in STEM from binary terms to finer degrees of identity such as race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, age and socio-economic class, and ensure meaningful participation of women in all their diversity across all aspects and levels of the education system.
  • Include parents and the broader community in STEM education programs to improve their own literacy on STEM and its benefits as well as awareness of STEM careers for women and girls.
  • Allocate adequate budget and work with private and civil society sectors to integrate gender-responsive STEM education and career opportunities not only in education and ICT sector policies but also national development plans
  • Reformulate basic compulsory education to include gender-responsive STEM holistically from basic STEM literacy to an integrated set of digital, cognitive, social and emotional skills necessary in this fast evolving tech space. STEM education should also be rooted in the contexts of real life, in ways that can prepare women and girls to not just become workers but also become leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs and forces of change
  • Develop and enforce equitable labor policies, social protection measures, and accountability measures that are not just job based but individual based in areas such as paid maternity/parental leaves, affordable childcare, equal pay to curb the adverse effects of the feminisation of labour especially in Asia and the Pacific where cheap labor is celebrated as a resource.

Efforts to promote girl’s and women’s skill development need to go hand in hand with a broader reassessment of how women’s skills are commonly valued and regarded.

 

Session 3: Implementing economic, labour and social policies that ensure women are not left behind in the digital age and leveraging financing for inclusive digital development and gender transformative innovation

 

Speaker: Gene Rodriguez, Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER)

Even prior to digitalisation, women workers have been confronted with challenges in relation to slave wages, unfair labour practices, lack of social protections, sexual harassment in the workplace, unsafe labour conditions, unabated attacks against union organisers and labour rights defenders. The rise of digitalisation has only exacerbated these conditions and created another level of exploitation for women workers.

The aggressive deployment of digital tools and innovation is primarily geared toward production efficiency for increased capital returns and profits, putting the burden on labourers to immediately adapt skills and endure precarious labour conditions. 

Digitalisation becomes fertile ground in shifting the nature of employment relationships, most visibly seen in the rise of the gig or platform economy in the past decade. Lack of transparency in algorithms alongside the informalisation of work introduces insecure employment status under the pretense of “flexible” arrangements which work to further legitimise unfair worker treatment in the absence of employer-employee relationships. 

It is also worth noting that work precarity does not exclusively occur in online platforms, women in the supply chain who labour for the production of technologies and data such as those in the electronics industry, are subjected to worse conditions. 

Digital platforms have also been used by governments and corporations to curtail the rights and enact cyberviolence and digital surveillance against women union leaders and labour rights defenders, leading to harassment, enforced disappearance, arrests, and even killings. Despite this, women workers  continue to organise themselves to collectively resist and assert their rights.

In this note, we make the following recommendations to achieve genuine-inclusive and transformative digital development:

  • Provide appropriate, proportionate wages and social security benefits for women workers, including those in the platform gig economy;
  • Pass and/or repeal domestic labour laws to properly address the gender-specific issues and needs of women workers, including provision of childcare infrastructure;
  • Ensure accountability and transparency on unfair labour practices and violations of labour rights;
  • Safeguarding women workers against exploitation and global capitalist interests
  • Regulate e-commerce and the platform economy to adapt people-centered regulation that prevents monopolisation and worsening labor flexibilization in the digital environment;
  • Provide full employment status with benefits to platform workers and ensure humane working conditions;
  • Ratify the ILO Convention 190 among member states to ensure the protection of women and the lgbtq+ community against all forms of harassment and gender based violence in the workplace, including the digital spaces;
  • Recognise and uphold the rights of women workers to organise and form unions and associations;
  • Promote and uphold the rights of women workers to equal and equitable resources;
  • Finally, ensure independent, impartial and effective investigations of all forms of attacks against union leaders, labour organizers, and labour rights defenders.

 

Session 4: Addressing online and technology-facilitated gender-based violence and discrimination and protecting the rights of women and girls online

 

Speaker: Kalpana Rai, Beyond Beijing Committee Nepal

Big tech companies eschew transparency and accountability in favor of privatization and protection of trade secrets which include algorithms that amplify hate speech along with GBV.  It is influencing the public’s perceptions of sexual and reproductive health and rights, bodily autonomy and integrity, and gender-based violence.  Along with the lack of digital literacy and digital divide, it results in victimization and stigmatization that adds another layer of abuse and trauma on the survivors of online GBV.

Women human rights defenders, LGBTIQ+ and nonbinary people, and other marginalised groups are at particular risk of targeted misogynistic hate speech campaigns.  Content deemed “sexual” is subjectively moderated with censorship of women and LGBTIQ groups, yet at the same time tech platforms are making profit through online sex work.

With this, we urge Member States to::

  • Move away from over-regulation and criminalisation of offences that may only require civil remedies, like defamation which is often used as a weapon to silence victims and survivors of GBV
  • Ensure rights, participation, security and well-being of women and LGBTIQ groups in online spaces.  Build safe spaces for marginalized groups to exchange and access information and tools
  • Ensure that law and policy that address GBV include online GBV, instead of specific policy on for online space and reassure that policy is developed through inclusive, participatory process
  • Increase efforts to raise awareness and educate women &  girls in all their diversity, and the general public on the right to SRHR and bodily autonomy & Self determination
  •  Ensure availability, affordability and accessibility of digital tools and technology at all levels inclusively and evenly; leaving no one behind.
  • Ensure full and comprehensive integration of CSE in school curriculum in accordance to the needs of girls and young people in all their diversity, in and out of school
  •  Lastly, ensure Financing for effective and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development towards achieving gender equality, the empowerment of all women and girls in all their diversity and Development Justice in the context of innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age.

 

Speaker: Hija Kamran, Association for Progressive Communications

Despite the many opportunities that the internet offers, deep rooted patriarchy and harmful gender stereotypes perpetuated within and outside of the internet have contributed to the rise of gender-based violence against women and gender diverse folks in online public spaces. The internet is used to exclude, discriminate against and abuse women including journalists and human rights defenders, young girls, gender diverse communities such as LGBTQIA+ and non-binary persons. Across Asia and the Pacific, gendered disinformation, targeted and coordinated hate speech campaigns, online sexual abuse, including intimate partner violence, and other forms of gender based violence perpetuate misogyny and patriarchal notions, and it does not help that legal remedies are not effective to protect them. This forces them to self-censor or even leave online spaces in hopes for the abuse to stop, leading to widening of gender digital divide. At this point, as we move to discuss the status of women in an increasingly digitised world, we must acknowledge that online spaces are a reflection of offline spaces, that online and offline violence happen in a continuum, that the dichotomy between the two is a myth, and that online violence either stems from or leads to offline violence. And so the implications of online violence are similar to that of offline violence, including devastating long term psychological, personal and professional impacts.

With this, we urge Member States to:

  • Proactively include women and gender diverse communities on policymaking table, and to take measures to ensure safety of these communities in online spaces by introducing appropriate and gender-sensitive legislation that do not infringe on civil liberties of individuals;
  • Reform language by way of which online gender based violence is regarded in regulatory spaces with priority given to eliminate power dynamics and inequalities that make online spaces inaccessible and unsafe for women and gender diverse groups, and focus on their rights and autonomy with an understanding that they are not voiceless, rather structurally silenced 
  • Allocate budget to support gender-inclusive and trauma-responsive services for victims and survivors of online gender based violence