UN Commission Requires Closing the Gender Digital Divide

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N.’s premiere world physique combating for gender equality on Saturday referred to as for wide-ranging efforts to shut the hole between women and men in at the moment’s technology-driven world and urged zero tolerance for gender-based violence and harassment on-line.

In a doc authorised by consensus after all-night negotiations on the finish of a two-week assembly, the Commission on the Status of Women expressed grave concern on the interrelation between offline and on-line violence, harassment and discrimination towards girls and ladies — and it condemned the rise in these acts.

It referred to as for a big improve in investments by the private and non-private sector to bridge the gender digital divide. It additionally referred to as for the elimination of boundaries to equal entry to digital expertise for all girls and ladies, and new insurance policies and applications to attain gender parity in rising scientific and technological fields.

Sima Bahous, government director of UN Women, an entity of the United Nations specializing in gender equality and the empowerment, referred to as the doc “game-changing” in selling a blueprint for a extra equal and related world for girls and ladies. The problem now, she mentioned, is for governments, the non-public sector, civil society and younger folks to show the blueprint “into actuality for all girls and ladies.”

At the beginning of the fee’s two-week assembly, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres mentioned its focus was very well timed as a result of girls and ladies are being left behind as expertise races forward.

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“Three billion individuals are nonetheless unconnected to the web, nearly all of them girls and ladies in creating nations, (and) in least developed nations simply 19% of girls are on-line,” Guterres mentioned. “Globally, women and girls make up simply one-third of scholars in science, expertise, engineering and arithmetic” and males outnumber girls two to 1 within the tech business.

Bahous informed the opening assembly that “the digital divide has develop into the brand new face of gender inequality,” with 259 million extra males than girls on-line final yr. She additionally cited a survey of feminine journalists from 125 nations that discovered three-quarters had skilled on-line harassment in the midst of their work and a 3rd had engaged in self-censorship in response.

The “agreed conclusions” doc adopted Saturday by the 45-member fee requires equal high quality training for girls and ladies in science, expertise, engineering, arithmetic, data and communications expertise, and digital literacy to allow them to thrive within the quickly altering world.

During prolonged negotiations on the doc, which has 93 paragraphs, U.N. diplomats mentioned language on girls’s rights was challenged by Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Holy See and human rights language was additionally challenged by these nations in addition to Cuba and China. There had been additionally intense debates over language on gender-based violence facilitated by expertise, they mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of negotiations had been closed.

The closing doc reaffirms the 1995 Beijing platform adopted by 189 nations which mentioned for the primary time in a U.N. doc, that girls’s human rights embody the best to regulate and resolve “on issues regarding their sexuality, together with their sexual and reproductive well being, freed from discrimination, coercion and violence.”

The closing subject blocking consensus was Pakistan’s insistence on including a reference to “overseas occupation” to the doc, and Israel’s sturdy opposition, diplomats mentioned. The reference was not included and earlier than the doc’s adoption Pakistan’s consultant expressed remorse that the wants and priorities of girls belonging to creating nations and dealing with humanitarian disaster together with overseas occupation weren’t included.