Women leaders are rooting for the bridging of the existing digital gap to enhance gender equality across the globe.
Led by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous, they hold that digital rights are women’s rights, adding the ongoing digital revolution presents unprecedented opportunities for women and girls.
The women leaders are gathered in New York for this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which started on March 6 and will end on March 17.
CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Making her opening statement, Ms Bahous noted that digital divide has become the new face of gender inequality, which is being compounded by the pushback against women and girls globally.
“A new kind of poverty now confronts the world, one that excludes women and girls in devastating ways—that of digital poverty. We will not achieve gender equality without closing the digital gap,” said Ms Bahous.
She added that the ongoing digital revolution presents unprecedented opportunities for women and girls, hence the need to incorporate them. According to UN Women, women are 18 per cent less likely than men to own a smartphone, and far less likely to access or use the Internet.
In 2022 alone, about 259 million more men than women were online. Only 28 per cent of engineering graduates and 22 per cent of artificial intelligence workers globally are women, despite girls matching boys’ performance in science and technology subjects across many countries.
In the technology sector globally, women not only occupy fewer positions but also face a gender pay gap of 21 per cent. Nearly half of all women working in technology have faced workplace harassment.
The gap in access to digital tools and opportunities is widest where women and girls are often most vulnerable. It disproportionately affects women and girls with low literacy or low income, those living in rural or remote areas, migrants, women with disabilities, and older women. The digital divide can limit women’s access to life-saving information, mobile money products, agricultural extension, or online public services.
Discrimination
The UN women boss added it is important to squarely face threats to the safety and well-being of girls that technology can present. Even where they enjoy access to digital tools and services, discrimination has taken a foothold and continues to find new ways to deny them their rights.
Research has shown that 80 per cent of children in 25 countries reported feeling in danger of sexual abuse and exploitation when online, with adolescent girls being the most vulnerable. A survey of women journalists from 125 countries found that three-quarters had experienced online violence in the course of their work and a third had self-censored in response.
In Kenya, things are nor different when it comes to the digital gender gap. A 2021 study, titled Kenya’s Digital Economy: A People’s Perspective, found that only 35 per cent of women use advanced digital services, compared to 54 per cent of men. The study cited contributors to this gender digital divide in Kenya to include discrimination, harmful social norms, education divide, geography and lack of motivation.
The 2019 Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) Mobile Gender Gap Report had indicated that women in Kenya were 39 per cent less likely than men to have access to mobile internet and 23 per cent less likely to own a smartphone.
Dr Antony Luvanda, a senior IT lecturer at the Defence Forces Technical College at the National Defence University-Kenya, told Nation.Africa that myriad factors contributed to this sad state of affairs.
He attributed the high digital gender divide to inadequate infrastructure, inadequate ICT personnel, and poor advocacy of digital technology careers, gendered social norms and lack of women role models in digital technology for girls and women, among others. He said these factors have led to persistent inequality, with women not accessing the same opportunities to join the digital technology space as men.
“We, therefore, need to embrace a better approach to mitigating the cumulative disadvantages that lead to the exclusion of women from the digital space and careers. Digital technology is an enabler and driver of both innovation and entrepreneurship and by not having enough women in this space, we are simply locking them out of these two important components,” Dr Luvanda said.
Ms Dorcas Owino, the founder of Lake Hub, a technology and social innovation hub based in Kisumu, observed the digital gender gap in Kenya needs urgent attention.
Ms Owino noted that despite significant progress in recent years, women still lag behind in terms of having access to and adoption of digital technology, a thing that has significant implications for their economic opportunities, social mobility, and overall well-being.
“Bridging the digital gender gap in Kenya is essential for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. It is also critical for achieving the country’s development goals, including poverty reduction, economic growth, and improved healthcare and education outcomes,” she noted.
To bridge the digital gender gap, the IT specialist is rooting for the establishment of programmes that target women and girls, including initiatives that improve access to digital technology, provide targeted digital literacy programmes, address cultural and social norms, and create gender-responsive policies. BY DAILY NATION