During the two-week meeting, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women called for wide-ranging efforts to close the gender digital divide and urged zero tolerance for gender-based violence and harassment online. The commission also condemned the increase in such acts and called for investment by the public and private sectors to remove barriers to equal access to digital technology for all women and girls. The commission’s “agreed conclusions” document calls for equal quality education for women and girls in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, information and communications technology, and digital literacy. Diplomats from several countries challenged language on women’s rights and human rights in the document’s lengthy negotiations, and debates arose over language on gender-based violence facilitated by technology. The final document reaffirms the 1995 Beijing platform 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.”
UN Calls for Action to Bridge Gender Digital Divide
The United Nations has called for urgent efforts to close the gap between men and women in the technology-driven world. The Commission on the Status of Women has expressed concerns about the interrelation between offline and online violence, harassment, and discrimination against women and girls. The commission condemned the increase in these acts and urged zero tolerance for gender-based violence and harassment online.
Investment by the public and private sectors is needed to bridge the gender digital divide. The commission called for the removal of barriers to equal access to digital technology for all women and girls. New policies and programs should be created to achieve gender parity in emerging scientific and technological fields.
UN Women’s executive director, Sima Bahous, referred to the document as “game-changing” for promoting a blueprint for a more equal and connected world for women and girls. She challenged governments, private sectors, civil society, and young people to turn the blueprint “into reality for all women and girls”.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said women and girls are being left behind as technology races ahead. “Three billion people are still unconnected to the internet, the majority of them women and girls in developing countries, (and) in least developed countries just 19% of women are online,” Guterres said. “Globally, girls and women make up just one-third of students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics” and men outnumber women two to one in the tech industry.
Bahous told the opening meeting that “the digital divide has become the new face of gender inequality,” with 259 million more men than women online last year. She 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 commission’s “agreed conclusions” 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.
U.N. Diplomats Discuss Women’s Rights in Lengthy Negotiations
During lengthy negotiations on a document with 93 paragraphs, diplomats from Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Holy See, Cuba, and China challenged language on women’s rights and human rights. Speaking anonymously, diplomats said there were also intense debates over language on gender-based violence facilitated by technology.
The final document reaffirms the 1995 Beijing platform 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 was the final issue blocking consensus, and Israel strongly opposed it. The reference was not included, and Pakistan’s representative expressed regret that the needs and priorities of women belonging to developing countries and facing humanitarian crises, including foreign occupation, were not included.
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