Global InformatIon SocIety Watch 2013 Women’s rights, gender and ICTs AssociAtion for Progressive communicAtions (APc) And HumAnist institute for cooPerAtion witH develoPing countries (Hivos) Global Information Society Watch 2013 Global Information Society Watch 2013 Steering committee Anriette Esterhuysen (APC) Loe Schout (Hivos) Coordinating committee Janine Moolman (APC) Monique Doppert (Hivos) Valeria Betancourt (APC) Mallory Knodel (APC) Project coordinator Valeria Betancourt Editor Alan Finlay Assistant editor Lori Nordstrom Publication production Mallory Knodel Proofreading Valerie Dee Lori Nordstrom Graphic design Monocromo [email protected] Phone: +598 2400 1685 Cover illustration Matías Bervejillo Financial support provided by Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (Hivos) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Funding Leadership and Opportunities for Women (FLOW) Global Information Society Watch Published by APC and Hivos 2013 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence ‹creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0› Some rights reserved. ISSN: 2225-4625 ISBN: 978-92-95102-06-4 APC-201310-CIPP-R-EN-DIGITAL-197 Table of contents Preface . 6 Institutional overview Edwin Huizing executive director, hivos Whose internet is it anyway? Shaping Anriette Esterhuysen the internet – feminist voices in governance executive director, apc decision making . 55 Heike Jensen Introduction: The online terrain for women’s rights. 7 Whose internet is it anyway? Shaping Joanne Sandler the internet – women’s voices i n governance gender at work decision making in the Middle East and North Africa. 61 Thematic reports Hanane Boujemi humanist institute for co-operation with developing countries Accessing infrastructure. 16 Mariama Deen-Swarray and Mpho Moyo Country reports research ict africa Introduction. 64 Participatory citizenship: Tracing the impact of ICTs on the social and political Argentina. 66 participation of women . 25 Nodo TAU Anita Gurumurthy Bangladesh . 70 it for change Bytes for All Bangladesh Sexuality and the internet: Sexual rights and Bolivia. 73 internet regulation . 32 REDES Foundation Bruno Zilli and Horacio Sívori latin american center on sexuality and human rights, Brazil. 76 state university of rio de janeiro Instituto Nupef Violence against women online . 38 Bulgaria . 80 Jan Moolman BlueLink association for progressive communications (apc) Cameroon. 84 Digital security online . 43 PROTEGE QV Mary Lawlor front line defenders Canada. 88 Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Online disobedience. 47 Nadine Moawad China . 93 association for progressive communications (apc) Danwei and Media Monitor for Women Network From string theory to clothes wringers: Colombia . 97 A historical map of women shaping science Colnodo and technology . 50 Congo, Democratic Republic of . 101 Compiled by Sonia Randhawa Si Jeunesse Savait Congo, Republic of . 103 AZUR Développement Cook Islands . 107 Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA) Costa Rica. .111 New Zealand . 179 Cooperativa Sulá Batsú APC (New Zealand) Côte d’Ivoire. .113 Nigeria . 183 Nnenna.org Fantsuam Foundation Ecuador. 118 Pakistan. 187 CIESPAL Bytes for All Pakistan Egypt. 122 Peru. 191 ArabDev Red Científica Peruana and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú Ethiopia . 125 Ethiopian Free and Open Source Software Network Philippines. 195 (EFOSSNET) Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) India. 129 Romania. 200 Digital Empowerment Foundation StrawberryNet Foundation and Sapientia – Hungarian University of Transylvania Indonesia. 134 Nieke Jahja Rwanda. 204 HeHe Limited Iran. 136 Volunteer Activists South Africa. 208 Right2Know and Women’sNet Iraq. 139 Richmond University in London Spain. 211 Pangea Italy. 142 Lea Melandri and Giacomo Mazzone (with the support Switzerland . 214 of Centro Nexa and Arturo di Corinto) Comunica-ch Jamaica . 146 Syria. 218 Institute for Gender and Development Studies Mona Unit, Hanadi Traifeh University of the West Indies and Mona ICT Policy Centre, University of the West Indies Tanzania. 222 Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East Japan. .151 and Southern Africa (CIPESA) Japan Computer Access for Empowerment (JCAFE) Thailand. 225 Jordan. 156 Thai Netizen Network Alarab Alyawm Uganda. 229 Kenya . 159 Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) United States. 231 Korea, Republic of . 164 Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet and May First/People Link Mexico . 168 Uruguay. 234 Association for Progressive Communications (APC) ObservaTIC, Universidad de la República Nepal. .171 Venezuela. 237 Development Knowledge Management and Innovation EsLaRed Services Private Limited Netherlands . 175 NETSHEILA Preface At the Fourth World Conference on Women This edition of GISWatch examines how the in Beijing in 1995, ICTs were recognised as internet and other ICTs have extended the critical for achieving women’s empowerment public sphere and created new opportunities and gender equality. In 2003, the World and freedoms for women. It highlights the Summit on the Information Society threats to these freedoms and explores the reinforced that the development of ICTs role of technology in resistance to these will provide opportunities for women’s full threats. and equal participation in all spheres of life. Since then the internet has become a No struggle for social justice is a better critical global resource that enables women measure of success than that for women’s to exercise their right to speak, impart rights and gender equality. This can also be opinions, share ideas, build knowledge applied to the internet. A truly free internet and access information. Access to the that fulfils its potential as a tool for social internet enables women to participate in the justice is an internet that is not just used by information economy, exercise citizenship women, but also shaped by them through rights, get access to health information and their involvement in its governance and other services, form communities, engage in development. It is an internet on which formal and informal processes to determine women have the freedom and capacity to their social, cultural and political life and actively tell their stories, participate in social, more. By the end of 2013, 1.3 billion women political and economic life, and claim their are expected to be online. We believe this rights to be empowered, equal citizens of the increase in the number of connected women world who can live free from discrimination must be, and can be, accompanied by and the fear of violence. ■ greater empowerment of women and more widespread gender equality. However, human rights online are connected with human rights offline, and to achieve these goals we need to combat discrimination and gender-based violence. Online harassment, cyber stalking and other ICT- enabled violations are on the increase, as are shutdowns of networks by governments, and censorship of sexual rights and reproductive health websites and other content that is Edwin Huizing particularly relevant to women. The very ExEcutivE DirEctor, Hivos spaces that allowed women to increase their participation in the public sphere and amplify Anriette Esterhuysen their demands for justice are under threat. ExEcutivE DirEctor, APc 6 / Global Information Society Watch Introduction Our dilemma ended because of serendipity. An Joanne Sandler Gender at Work anonymous donor bought the URL and donated it www.genderatwork.org to us, paying USD 400 into an account in Russia. We learned, of course, to never let bureaucracy in- terfere with expeditious renewals of our URLs. But The online terrain for women’s rights something changed forever: we braced ourselves I remember vividly the day, in 2003, that the name for the next attack. Given the pace of technologi- of the United Nations Development Fund for Women cal innovation and the profitability and impunity (UNIFEM) was stolen online by a pornographer. I for perpetrators, there was a feeling of inevitability was the deputy director of UNIFEM and the head about it. of our communications division came running into Many individuals and organisations work- my office, frantic, and told me to search online for ing at the intersection of feminism, social justice, “www.unifem.com”. Pornographic images filled my human rights, and information technology echo screen and it created a loop that took many tense the observations in a recent report: “If we agree moments to close. that the online world is socially constructed, then I remember the feelings of violation and horror. gender norms, stereotypes and inequality that ex- 1 And, as we tried, largely with futility, to find out if ist offline… can be replicated online.” This is not we had any rights to reclaim our identity, I recall our necessarily at the forefront of thinking when one’s frustration and helplessness. It didn’t matter that business is expanding because of online sales, this had also happened to UNICEF. It didn’t matter when telemedicine brings powerful diagnostic tools that unifem.com was not our main website, but a to rural areas to save lives, or when online activ- URL that we bought precisely to avoid it being used ism helps to unite the opposition and bring down by others, nor that our frustrated web manager was a dictator, as we saw in the Egyptian and Tunisian unable to get a bureaucratic administration to pay uprisings in 2011. But as we laud the power of the the USD 65 needed to renew it