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The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the work of the ITU Council Working Group-Internet (CWG-I) Open Consultation on Bridging the Digital Gender Divide.
APC considers the gender digital divide as both a symptom and cause of violations of women’s human rights. It is a symptom, in that the discrimination that women face on the basis of social and cultural norms is one of the most pronounced causes of the gender digital divide. To put it simply, all disparities in internet access are situated within other disparities that women face in society, be they based on location, economic power, age, gender, racial or ethnic origin, social and cultural norms, education, or other factors. These are causes of violations of women’s human rights, because the internet can be a critical enabler of human rights, and the gender digital divide leaves women who are without meaningful internet access less equipped to exercise their human rights and participate in public life/society. Barriers to women’s meaningful access to the internet are multifaceted, and include:
*Availability (e.g. women have no broadband access, public internet centres are in spaces that women do not usually have access to, etc.)
*Affordability (e.g. insufficient income to pay for data, cannot afford a device, etc.)
*Culture and norms (e.g. boys are prioritised for technology use at home, online gender-based violence, restrictions to movement, etc.)
*Capacity and skills (e.g. gender literacy gap, lack of skills and confidence to access the internet or explore technology, etc.)
*Availability of relevant content (e.g. language issues, lack of content that speaks to women's contexts, gender-related content is censored/restricted, etc.)
*Women's participation in decision-making roles pertaining to the internet and/or in the technology sector (e.g. when women are not able to pursue careers in science and technology, when their participation in relevant policy-making forums is restricted).
Given the range of barriers contributing to the gender digital divides outlined above, and the fact that barriers to women’s meaningful access to the internet are deeply rooted in cultural norms and values, we encourage the ITU to focus its efforts on barriers that fall within its remit, such as availability and affordability, as well as increasing women's participation in decision-making roles within the ITU itself. All efforts by the ITU to increase affordable and meaningful access to the internet should integrate a women’s rights perspective.
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