Gender and Internet Access
There is a famous saying that goes, “If you educate a girl or
a woman, you educate a family, and maybe even a community,” and I cannot help
but stand behind it. Owing
to a surge in mobile phone possession and reasonably priced data bundles,
internet usage across Africa is swiftly budding. What this means that more
people in Africa are getting more and more digitally literate and have access
to information, resources, and prospects that they have never had before. The
creation of new avenues for social and economic development is now a reality.
In
sub-Saharan Africa, unfortunately women are more probable to have no internet
access as in comparison to men. Women in Africa make up more
than half of the labor force than men and their greater amounts of digital
illiteracy means that a lot of women will not profit from the prospects that
the internet brings forth. This has stark implications not just for themselves, but for their families, communities and the
nations in their entirety. The internet lets us to share more and
better information more widely. Successful online campaigns tend to have broad,
cross-partisan appeal. They seek mutual ground and are framed around concepts
most of us appreciate and venerate: fairness, justice, peace.
Relocating to the cities is not at all
simple. Enhanced policies must to be put in place to help the integration of
rural girls into cities, so they can be empowered and so they may also return
to their families and empower other girls. This means not only providing access
to technology, but also guaranteeing that such access to technology and
information is in line with the expectations of rural girls such as finding
employment.
Economic empowerment
is best imparted at an early age. One of the most profound benefits of being
digitally literate is probably that there is a superfluity of free learning
resources online. The chief reason why women continue to fall behind men when
it comes to digital literacy is, well, illiteracy.
Young
women and girls also
need safe spaces where they can find support as they access technology and
information. Financial provision for programs and services requires vital
consideration at the policy level. In places that girls are normally barred
from formal education, governments need to act to wear down social, cultural,
and other obstacles to education. Governments also need to provide open,
accessible, working information.
There is a direct proportional between
increases in women access to increase to violence against women. How is this
addressed is the big question? Policy wise How are women right featured in
Internet Governance in terms of sexual violence and all its forms. Online
stalking is widely an issue many women face on social media, and even other
factors, impersonation and destroying women’s name online a rising issue.
The way women are represented, we need
a more empowering feature of women on the net, a stronger view that makes our
girl believe women are more than what they are portrayed by the media. The
manipulation of images that are then used for blackmail and destroying their
credibility.
