Posted 12 November 2009
In this edition GenderIT.org is publishing a series of papers that provide a snapshot and baseline on the law and policy on
ICTs and violence against women (VAW) in 12 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
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*GENDER CENTRED: A GenderIT.org thematic bulletin*
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*Violence against women and ICTs*
I. SMALL THOUGHTS AROUND…Violence against women and ICTs
II. NEW ARTICLES
II. FEATURED RESOURCES
IV. JARGON
V. WHO'S WHO
VI. DID YOU KNOW…
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Watch out for updates as the GenderIT.org team follows the Internet
Governance Forum, from 15 to 18 November 2009. We will be blogging and
twittering about the event, bringing into focus the gendered dimensions
of internet governance issues. Follow our tweets under the hashtag:
#genderigf2009.
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I. SMALL THOUGHTS AROUND…Violence against women and ICTs
by Erika Smith and Sonia Randhawa
One of the difficulties faced by women's rights advocates is the
reluctance of some participants to see the internet as a political
issue; unable to see that this refusal is in itself a political act.
The lack of adequate resources, information or analysis that explores
communications and technology policies that prevent, minimise or address
harm to women is a material challenge faced by advocates working on
violence against women.
Over the next two months, GenderIT.org will be publishing a series of
papers that provide a snapshot and baseline on the law and policy on
ICTs and violence against women (VAW) in 12 countries across Africa,
Asia and Latin America. The papers are part of the Association for
Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme (APC
WNSP) project that connects ICTs, VAW and Millennium Development Goal
Three (MDG3). This project is entitled, “Strengthening women’s strategic
use of ICTs to combat violence against women and girls”, and is
supported by the Dutch government’s MDG3 Fund to empower women and
promote gender equality.
This two and a half year project, initiated in January 2009, aims to
help women participants negotiate the fraught terrain of ICTs where
freedoms go hand in hand with growing privacy and security concerns.
Through a multifaceted approach, it aims to facilitate discussion and
partnership between women's rights advocates, representatives from the
ICT sector and policy makers towards solutions and policies that can
address the intersection between VAW and ICT.
Each of the participating countries illustrates different challenges and
opportunities for how ICTs impact on VAW, either in worsening the
problem, for example through the use of ICTs in trafficking, or in
providing a space where women can collaborate and network against
violence. In Argentina, around half the population has access to the
internet, a figure that hides large disparities. For example,
three-quarters of those over 50 don't know what a web browser is. In
Brazil, like in many countries participating in the project, mobile
phones are the most widely used gateway to new technologies. However,
legislation on communications and VAW is primarily focussed on
representations and portrayal of women through broadcasting laws.
Read the full article at:
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=f--e--1&x=96302
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II. RESOURCES
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Argentina Country Report. The kiss of life or death?*
Cristina Peralta examines the situation in Argentina, where few cases of
VAW using ICTs have been denounced. One study found that a small
percentage of young girls had been contacted by unknown people via chat
or Facebook before disappearing. Cell phones are also used for
controlling women's mobility and have become one of the first artifacts
to be destroyed by the partner during violent reactions, according to
survivor testimony. However, most of the organisations that work on VAW
issues primarily use ICTs for sharing information and networking. Some
of them participate in observatories, that include VAW in the media as
one of their concerns. This paper looks at these issues, and concludes
with recommendations for civil society to help address these problems
and formulate policy to deal with emerging challenges.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96294-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Brazil Country Report*
In this paper, Ingrid Leao, Thais Lapa and Tamara Amoroso discuss
violence against women in the media, with advertisement and TV show
examples. It also looks at civil society expectations for the first
National Conference on Communications, to be held in December 2009. It
examines the use of social networks like Orkut and Twitter;
denouncements of VAW practices, such as cyber-bullying of teenage girls;
and how ICTs are also used for prevention and assistance of VAW survivors.
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Cambodia Country Report*
Chim Manavy examines how growth of the internet is pushing the limits of
a society's attitudes towards acceptable media images, through
exploitative use of images taken for private consumption. Technology is
moving across boundaries faster than the law can address. At the same
time, ICT use in general, much less awareness of how ICTs can be
strategically used to combat violence against women, is very limited in
Cambodia. While other women’s organisations and networks worldwide are
already using online resources in a myriad of ways to mobilise support
and share experiences, most Cambodian women are not familiar with the
use of ICT.
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Colombia Country Report: Overcoming patriarchy?*
Lucy Niño and Lida Nuñez look at how the Colombian government has paid
special attention to ICT policies, offering ICT literacy programmes and
ICT inclusion in marginalised areas, while at the same time ICTs are
used to promote prostitution and pornography produced in the country via
the internet and cellphones. Government has produced a campaign to
foster a “healthy use” of internet and to protect children. Social
movements and women´s movements have also used ICTs for anti-VAW
campaigning, supporting survivors and promoting images of women free
from stereotypes in the media. This paper examines these trends, and
urges action to end VAW in public, private and institutional spaces, in
the internal armed conflict and in the symbolic sphere.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96281-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Congo Country Report*
In Congo, Sylvie Niombo explores the intersection of VAW and ICTs, where
mobile phone use appears to be the primary vehicle used to perpetrate
VAW using ICTs. SMS and phone calls are used by some men to harass women
and girls. Male monitoring of women’s use of mobile phones leads to
blurring of privacy issues and power relations between men and women are
reflected by who has the resources to buy cell phones. Mobile phones are
also used by young people to disseminate pictures of naked girls.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96280-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Democratic Republic of Congo Country Report*
In the context of a country with one of the world's worst human rights
records, women and girls are the victims of sexual violence perpetrated
mostly by combatants from both sides. However, Sylvie Niombo finds in
this paper that the intersections between violence against women and
girls and ICTs in the DRC are not well established. The internet makes
it possible to share experiences and receive information to advance the
cause of women’s rights but can facilitate violence towards Congolese
women and girls. A lack of confidence in the legal system and the
strong presence of men in the judiciary make women unlikely to seek help
from the courts, but there is growing mobilisation of women and human
rights organisations in the fight to end violence against women (VAW) in
partnership with the United Nations and international organisations.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96279-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Malaysia Country Report. Strengthening women's strategic use of ICTs to
combat violence against women and girls*
Jac SM Kee and Sonia Randhawa highlight forms of VAW that have received
recognition in Malaysia and provide the context of ICT development and
national policy objectives in this paper. It is not an exhaustive
assessment of the current state of VAW, but rather aims to surface some
of the interconnections between ICT issues and VAW and areas of
potential opportunities for advocacy, as well as looking at related
cyber laws and areas of regulation, particularly content regulation,
privacy and surveillance.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96277-1
*Violence against women and ICTs in the Pacific Islands region: An overview*
Sonia Randhawa interviews FemLINK Pacific coordinator Sharon
Bhagwan-Rolls to get an overview of violence against women in the
Pacific Islands region and to look at how ICTs are contributing to
increasing the vulnerability of women and providing new forms of
harassment and harm, while at the same time grassroots initiatives such
as a mobile community radio station are helping to provide women with
tools for building self-confidence and information on what to do in
times of crisis.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96278-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Pakistan Country Report*
Access to mobile technology is increasing rapidly in Pakistan, and women
are also gaining access, albeit at a slower rate than men. Kyla Pasha
examines how mobile technology is ripe for use in strategies of
empowerment, as long as access to technology is accompanied by training
and orientation.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96276-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Philippines Country Report*
Jessica Umanos Sotos explores why specific law is needed in the
Philippines to prosecute perpetrators of violence against women through
the use of ICTs or cyberspace. She argues that national ICT institutions
and private companies’ policies cannot remain blind to the violations to
women’s rights perpetuated via ICTs in the context of the violation of
privacy rights through the illicit production and distribution of
private and intimate activities. The violation of privacy rights comes
in the form of sex-video scandals via telephony and internet. She also
documents how, although there are no available studies on how other
forms of violence such as stalking or sexual harassment and even direct
threats are figuring as VAW via mobile phones, these violations are
believed to be widespread.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=a--e96275-1
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
South Africa Country Report*
Two key debates are examined in the paper by Shereen Essof: censorship
versus freedom of expression and privacy versus surveillance. She looks
at the practices of VAW in a country with the world's highest reported
rate of femicide and where there is little understanding of the
strategic use of ICTs to support combating VAW as well as recognizing
new avenues for perpetrating violence against women.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?w=a&x=96274
*Violence against Women and Information Communication Technologies:
Uganda Country Report. Strengthening Women’s Strategic Use of ICT to
Combat Violence against Women and Girls.*
Aramanzan Madanda, Berna Ngolobe and Goretti Zavuga Amuriat look at how
ICTs have been used to help provide spaces for women and sexual
minorities. Sexual minorities have a presence on the internet to
articulate concerns of members and raise awareness. Women’s mobile phone
use is controlled by their husbands, who either give or withold
permission to use and dictate when and how. Some women have acquired two
SIM cards to forestall domestic violence. The authors view this as a
sign of women’s empowerment as telephones provide a means through which
to break male control by opening contacts to the outside world.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?w=a&x=96273
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III. JARGON
*MDG3*
At the 2000 UN Millennium Summit, 189 world leaders from rich and poor
countries alike committed to a set of eight Millenium Development Goals
(MDG) to end extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. Goal #3 aims to “promote
gender equality and empower women”.
To understand unfamiliar ICT or gender terms visit the Jargon section:
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=j--e--1
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IV. WHO'S WHO
*Take Back The Tech! Reclaiming ICT to end violence against women*
Take Back The Tech! is a 16-day campaign initiated by APC WNSP in 2006.
From 25 November to 10 December every year, ICT users, communication
rights advocates, feminist and women's rights activists reclaim ICT to
end violence against women. Local and independent campaigns have sprung
up in numerous countries and spaces, sharing priorities, knowledge and
activism on this issue.
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=r90501-e96196-1
http://www.takebackthetech.net/
http://www.takebackthetech.net/whatstheissue
*UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women*
Appointed to look into the causes and consequences of violence against
women, the Special Rapporteur has the power to transmit appeals to
countries on alleged cases of VAW, undertake fact-finding missions to
countries and submit annual thematic reports to the UN General Assembly.
The most recent report was on the political economy of women's human
rights.
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/rapporteur/
*Working to Halt Online Abuse*
WHOA is a volunteer organization founded in 1997 to fight online
harassment through education of the general public, education of law
enforcement personnel, and empowerment of victims. The mission of WHOA
is to educate the Internet community about online harassment, empower
victims of harassment, and formulate voluntary policies that systems
administrators can adopt in order to create harassment-free
environments. They formulate voluntary policies to encourage online
communities to adopt in order to create safe and welcoming environments
for all internet users. WHOA fully supports the right to free speech
both online and off, but asserts that free speech is not protected when
it involves threats to the emotional or physical safety of anyone.
http://www.haltabuse.org/resources/volpol.shtml
To find out more about key stakeholders in the field of ICTs, visit the
Who's Who in Policy section:
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=w--e--1
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V. DID YOU KNOW...
*Gender Centred Archive*
You can now check all editions of GenderIT.org thematic bulletin,
published since 2006, in Gender Centred Archive:
http://www.genderit.org/archive/?q=en/bulletin
*Sign up for Gender Centred thematic bulletin*
You can sign up for Gender Centred thematic e-bulletin focused on
topical gender and ICT policy themes and issued in average four times
per year:
http://lists.apcwomen.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/genderitbulletin
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*CopyLeft. 2009 APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP)*
Permission is granted to use this document for personal use, for
training and educational publications, and activities by peace,
environmental, human rights or development organisations. Please provide
an acknowledgement to APC WNSP.
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