The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has noted in its new report that the digital gender divide is blocking women from becoming equal stakeholders in society and ultimately, putting entire communities at greater risk during emergencies.
The report ‘ Women, ICT and Emergency Telecommunications: Opportunities and Constraints, which was released in collaboration with the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), highlights that equal access to information and communication technology (ICT) can save lives in emergencies, including during pandemics.
The report revealed that as shown in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, women are more vulnerable and more likely to die than men, stressing that the Covid-19 pandemic has devastating social and economic consequences for women and girls because they comprise the majority of healthcare workers.
“Women are over-represented in the informal economy and take on most domestic work —significantly compounding pre-existing inequalities. At the same time, women are critical partners in building disaster resilience, however, a range of existing barriers limit their ability to protect themselves and to participate in disaster decision-making throughout the phases of the disaster risk management cycle. A woman’s ability to access accurate information not only has a direct impact on her own survival and disaster resilience, but also on that of the wider community,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.
ITU believes that the joint report will go a long way towards integrating women’s needs into national disaster risk reduction frameworks as the good practices put forward in the report, such as including women in all aspects of ICT development and disaster risk reduction, aim to help decision-makers ensure that they get access to the digital tools that can play such an important role in their own safety and security, and that of their families and communities.
According to the report, women are still 17% less likely to use the Internet than men, with an even wider gap in least developed countries. Women in low- and middle-income countries are also 10 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone than men. The global gender gap in mobile ownership is at its widest in South Asia.