Girls in ICT Day 2022
Message
Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau
28 April 2022
This Girls in ICT Day, we've chosen the theme 'Access and Safety', as part of efforts to promote a world in which every girl and woman feels safe and empowered to take part online, and to tap into the rich opportunities that digital technologies can offer their studies, and careers.
Our world has never been more digital.
We need to inspire women and girls to step up and become designers, creators, and leaders in this fast-evolving field, so that we build a gender-equitable digital future that meets everybody's needs.
But we'll never realize that dream of digital gender equality until the internet is a safe space for all.
At ITU, we recently surveyed more than 100 girls from around the world. Shockingly, fewer than one in ten said she felt fully equipped to stay safe online.
That is not acceptable.
This year, let's use Girls in ICT Day to step up efforts to turn this around.
Women and girls will never enjoy the full and free digital access that enables them to harness technology to change their lives – and the world – if they do not feel safe online.
I want our 193 Member States, our UN sister agencies, our private sector partners, and our civil society community to come together to commit to more effective actions to protect all users from online aggression and threats.
Engaging with young women who have faced these challenges, and partnering with them to co-develop solutions, is one important step.
We need their critical and innovative thinking, and their first-hand experience, to help ensure that tomorrow's internet is a 'safe space' for all.
So, this Girls in ICT Day, let's work together to ensure that every girl and woman, everywhere, gets her chance to use digital technologies to flourish, achieve her dreams, and be her best self.
