The Commission on the Status of Women, the UN’s leading organization for gender equality, has called for efforts to close the gender digital divide and zero tolerance for gender-based violence and harassment online. The final document reaffirms the 1995 Beijing platform, which said for the first time in a U.N. document that women’s human rights include the right to control and decide “on matters relating to their sexuality, including their sexual and reproductive health, free of discrimination, coercion, and violence.” Pakistan’s insistence on adding a reference to “foreign occupation” to the document, which Israel strongly opposed, was the only issue that blocked consensus. The focus of the commission’s two-week meeting was timely because women and girls are being left behind as technology races ahead. The digital divide has become the new face of gender inequality, with 259 million more men than women online last year.
UN Commission Urges Gender Equality in Technology and Zero Tolerance for Online Harassment
The Commission on the Status of Women, the United Nations’ leading organization for gender equality, has called for efforts to close the gender digital divide and zero tolerance for gender-based violence and harassment online. In a document approved unanimously after all-night negotiations at the end of a two-week meeting, the commission expressed concern at the interrelation between offline and online violence, harassment, and discrimination against women and girls. It called for increased investments by the public and private sectors to bridge the gender digital divide and to remove barriers to equal access to digital technology for all women and girls.
The commission also urged new policies and programs to achieve gender parity in emerging scientific and technological fields. UN Women’s Executive Director, Sima Bahous, called the document “game-changing” in promoting a blueprint for a more equal and connected world for women and girls. However, the challenge is now for governments, the private sector, civil society, and young people to turn the blueprint “into reality for all women and girls.”
At the start of the commission’s two-week meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that women and girls are being left behind as technology races ahead. He highlighted that globally, girls and women make up just one-third of students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, while men outnumber women two to one in the tech industry. In developing countries, the majority of the three billion people still unconnected to the internet are women and girls, with only 19% of women in least developed countries online.
Bahous emphasized that the digital divide has become the new face of gender inequality, with 259 million more men than women online last year. She also cited a survey of female journalists from 125 countries that found three-quarters had experienced online harassment in the course of their work, and a third had engaged in self-censorship in response.
The document calls for equal quality education for women and girls in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, information and communications technology, and digital literacy so they can thrive in the rapidly changing world. The commission’s focus on gender equality in technology is timely and necessary, considering the current situation.
UN Affirms Women’s Rights to Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights in Final Document
The United Nations’ final document on women’s rights has been approved after lengthy negotiations, which saw challenges to language on women’s rights by Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Holy See, Cuba, and China. Diplomats speaking anonymously said that there were also debates on gender-based violence facilitated by technology.
The final document reaffirms the 1995 Beijing platform, which said for the first time in a U.N. document that women’s human rights include the right to control and decide “on matters relating to their sexuality, including their sexual and reproductive health, free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”
The only issue that blocked consensus was Pakistan’s insistence on adding a reference to “foreign occupation” to the document, which Israel strongly opposed. The reference was not included, and Pakistan’s representative expressed regret that the needs and priorities of women facing humanitarian crises, including foreign occupation, were not included in the document.
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