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Making the link between technology, violence against women and MDG3

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"When I open the black box I play with love and curiousity"

Mobiles equipped with cameras are being used to peep up girl’s skirts as they climb on board buses. The same “emergency alert” button to send a distress signal from a cell phone is also connected to a global positioning system signal that allows women’s movements to be closely monitored by their spouses. Hundreds of Indian women denounce street sexual harassment in the Blank Noise Project Blogathon, many snapping shots of “Eve-teasing” aggressors. These are just some examples of the tense and ambiguous relationship between the growth in use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the preservation and expansion of women’s rights, in particular the right of women and girls to live lives free from violence.

For the APC WNSP, the most realistic and sustainable solution to the host of problems presented by these issues is the empowerment of women and girls through skills, knowledge, advocacy and community-building.

The two and a half year project “Strengthening women’s strategic use of ICTs to combat violence against women and girls” is supported by the Dutch government’s MDG3 Fund to empower women and promote gender equality.. Implemented in 12 countries, the project aims to help women participants negotiate the fraught terrain of ICTs where freedoms go hand in hand with growing privacy and security concerns.

In collaboration with country partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the APC WNSP will carry out national strategy workshops with women’s organisations working to address violence against women, to alert them to the risks and opportunities that ICTs present in the fight against VAW. Each of the participating countries will bring new facets to understanding ICT and VAW because of their distinct realities and contexts. Brazil boasts of having the highest level of internet users in Latin America, in stark contrast to Cambodia where internet users represent just .5% of the population. (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm) The conflict situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia add another layer to the ways in which women experience violence. Unsurprisingly, all of the participating countries share the same stark rates of violence against women, in all of its expressions.

The project is not solely geared towards women’s rights activists. It also calls on representatives from the ICT sector and policy makers to examine the intersections between VAW and ICT and work together to develop ICT policy that is gender-aware and socially commited. A strong training component features Feminist Tech Exchanges each year in every country, strengthening women’s organisations and survivor’s skills in secure online communications, advocacy and self-expresssion via internet tools. Small grants in each of the countries will encourage innovative ICT practices to address violence.

APC WNSP’s Take Back the Tech(TBTT) campaign to end violence against women, now in its fourth year and growing increasingly stronger, offers a strong platform and community for project activities, able to spotlight concerns that emerge around ICT and VAW in each of the countries. Country coordinators, who will all run their own local TBTT campaigns, hope to use Take Back the Tech’s fun and creative appeal to reach out to adolescent girls and young women.

Ultimately, the project aims to help create a global community of women and adolescent girls who are critically taking up ICT tools and using them to change what the UN Millenium Project has called a global epidemic of violence.