{"id":43,"date":"2018-10-08T03:30:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T03:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annual-reports.itforchange.net\/Annual-Report\/?page_id=43"},"modified":"2018-10-10T12:04:30","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T12:04:30","slug":"gender-justice-in-the-digital-society","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/annual-reports.itforchange.net\/Annual-Report\/gender-justice-in-the-digital-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Overview<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>

Directors’ Note<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>

Our Team<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>

Thematic Areas<\/span><\/a><\/p>

1.\u00a0Governance of the Digital Economy<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>

2.\u00a0Digital Rights, Development & Democracy<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>

3. Prakriye<\/em> Field Center<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>

4.\u00a0ICTs and Education<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>

5.\u00a0Gender Justice in the Digital Society<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>

Publications<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>

Financial Statements<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Gender Justice in the Digital Society<\/span><\/h1>

The feminist project of expanding women\u2019s autonomy and overturning entrenched power hierarchies demands new strategies in these datafied times. Digital technologies have completely restructured society and its institutions, and as data becomes the key artefact of power and control, feminism needs to stay ahead in its theory and practice. Our research, advocacy and networking efforts at global and national levels are directed towards this imperative, in order to promote gender justice in the digital society.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>

Policy research<\/span><\/p>

Online freedom for all = No unfreedom for women<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>

With support from the Web Foundation, we carried out a two-country research study<\/a> <\/span>in India and Bangladesh on strengthening existing legal-institutional response mechanisms to gender-based cyber violence. In January 2017, we kicked off the project with a brainstorming meeting<\/a><\/span> in Bengaluru where we solicited inputs to our research framework from leading feminist practitioners, academics and civil society organizations engaged in the issue in the Indian context. The framework was tailored to the Bangladesh country-context by our research partner Article 19.<\/span><\/p>

In both sites, the study focused on interrogating the shortcomings in existing national legislation with respect to addressing emerging forms of technology-mediated violence; and analyzing intermediary liability regimes for their effectiveness in balancing the competing considerations of the right to freedom from violence and freedom of expression. Additionally, we commissioned two papers <\/a><\/span>to explore the complications of introducing effective governance frameworks on a platformized Internet.<\/span><\/p>

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National Dialogue on Gender-Based Cyber Violence<\/figcaption><\/figure>

In February 2018, national consultations were convened in both countries in order to trigger an active public debate on the issue. For the India consultation<\/a><\/span>, we partnered with the Advanced Centre for Women\u2019s Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, for a systematic stocktaking of the various angles of the issue, by bringing together scholars, practitioners, activists, women\u2019s rights lawyers, journalists, and students from various disciplines. This consultation and our work in the area has been widely noticed: Amnesty International Bengaluru sought inputs from us to plan their national campaign on gender-based cyber violence; ICRW Mumbai approached us to help them with the methodology of their research on online violence as a public health issue; and Facebook India got in touch with us to be part of their forthcoming policy roundtables on evaluating their existing community standards.<\/span><\/p>

The main finding from our research in the area is that the fragmented and piecemeal approach to cyber violence in existing legislation adversely affects access to justice for victims. Online violence that is blatantly sexist is often dismissed on the grounds that it is not sexually explicit; hence, misogynistic trolling and doxxing are seen by law enforcement authorities as social problems not falling within the purview of laws. There is also an urgent need to move from a morality-based approach to the issue to one that is founded in a new feminist jurisprudence<\/a><\/span> grounded in the principles of equality, dignity, and privacy.<\/span><\/p>

We shared these insights at the global level through a workshop that we co-organized with Web Foundation at the Internet Governance Forum. We were invited by media spaces with wide circulation such as GenderIT.org<\/a><\/span> and LSE Peace and Security blog<\/a><\/span> to write for their blog series. <\/span><\/p>

A high point for us was the citation of our inputs<\/a><\/span> in the final report on online violence submitted by the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Ms. Dubravka \u0160imonovi\u0107\u00a0 to the 38th Session of the Human Rights Council.<\/span><\/p>

At the national level, we shared the key insights on future policy directions from our research and national consultation with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. We were subsequently invited to contribute to the Ministry\u2019s deliberations on rethinking content regulation.<\/span><\/p>

The Web Foundation has been impressed by the rigor and pathbreaking nature of our research and they extended continued support for this line of work in India in 2018. In the next phase, we are planning a deep dive into mapping the adequacy of law enforcement responses to gender-based cyber violence in three states: Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The main prongs of exploration will include mapping the shortcomings in police investigations of complaints of gender-based cyber violence, including lack of digital infrastructure and technical capacity for evidence gathering amongst law enforcement agencies; as well as difficulties faced in interfacing with Internet intermediaries such as Facebook and Twitter.<\/span><\/p>

Digital India through a gender lens<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>

In 2018, with support from Heinrich Boell Foundation, we undertook a research study<\/a><\/span> on analyzing the Government of India\u2019s flagship program, Digital India, from a gender perspective. The program document itself does not contain any explicit reference to women\u2019s empowerment or gender equality. However, popular narratives around the idea of Digital India, especially statements and speeches by members of the Union Cabinet, tend to repeatedly invoke the trope of ‘a digital revolution for women\u2019s empowerment’, foregrounding women\u2019s digital enskillment, entrepreneurship, and inclusion in welfare delivery systems.<\/span><\/p>

Our research report<\/a><\/span> has focused on providing a critical overview of Digital India, evaluating the extent to which the three main outcome areas of the program \u2013 \u2018infrastructure as a utility to every citizen\u2019, \u2018governance and services on demand\u2019 and \u2018digital empowerment of citizens\u2019 \u2013 address gender-transformative change. It also offers suggestions for building an enabling environment to expand opportunities and strategic life choices for women, and contributing to gender equality, as economic, social and political arenas are fundamentally redefined by digital technologies. This report is a much-needed contribution since digital infrastructure and digital economy policies and strategy documents, even those prepared by NITI Aayog, continue to be gender-neutral.<\/span><\/p>

Institutional capacity-building <\/span><\/p>

Egov4Women toolkit for governments in the Asia-Pacific<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>

Building on our seven-country research study on harnessing e-government for women\u2019s empowerment in the Asia-Pacific that we carried out in 2016, we developed the \u2018Egov4Women<\/a>\u2019<\/span> Toolkit.<\/span><\/p>

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United Nations E-government Survey 2018 highlights how Egov4Women Toolkit fills a much-needed gap in terms of mainstreaming gender perspectives in e-government<\/figcaption><\/figure>

This is the first policy toolbox that explicitly addresses what it takes to systematically mainstream gender perspectives in e-government. It is also timely since the datafication of governance has made digital strategies increasingly central to every aspect of governance. Through a set of five comprehensive modules drawing upon insights from good practices in the region and beyond, the tool kit provides key pointers for policy makers on gender-responsive design of e-service delivery, e-participation and connectivity initiatives, and also introduces a capabilities-based approach to outcome evaluation of e-government for women\u2019s empowerment. We have trained state government officials using the Toolkit, in partnership with the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration, Mussorie, in November 2017. This toolkit developed with support from the Korea-ESCAP Cooperation Fund was officially launched at the UN CSW in March 2018. It has found special mention in the UN E-government Survey 2018 as a valuable resource on gender mainstreaming in e-government. <\/span><\/p>

ESCAP has expressed interest in supporting IT for Change in implementing capacity-building programmes in select countries in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/span><\/p>

Networks <\/span><\/p>

We have been closely engaging with number of global networks to influence the dominant policy discourse on women\u2019s rights in the digital economy and society. We introduced the BRICS Feminist Watch Coalition to critical perspectives on gender and digital trade, and the \u2018data for development\u2019 agenda in the SDGs. We have also been contributing regularly to online ideation processes on \u2018technologies for empowerment\u2019, convened by the W20 Coalition: an official dialogue group of the G20 which promotes the economic empowerment of women and gender equality in the G20 countries. We are also a member of the \u2018political feminism\u2019 network convened by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and we bring in new perspectives at the intersections of \u2018gender justice\u2019 and \u2018the digital\u2019 to network members. We have been approached by leading organizations in the digital rights space such as Association for Progressive Communications to contribute framework papers for their research strategy development on gender and digital rights.<\/span><\/p>

Engagement with UN processes <\/span><\/p>

IT for Change was a part of the CSO delegation supported by UN Women India to participate in UN CSW 62, March 2018. Nandini Chami spoke at the Interactive Expert Panel on \u2018Innovative <\/a>d<\/a>ata <\/a>a<\/a>pproaches<\/a>\u2019<\/span> for measuring progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment. We also supported UN Women India in finalizing their comments on the zero draft of CSW 62.<\/span><\/p>

As an International Steering Committee member of the UN Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG), we wrote a critical <\/a><\/span>feminist analysis<\/span> <\/a>of the algorithmic connection to the public sphere, contributing to GAMAG\u2019s reflections on the review theme of the UN CSW.<\/span><\/p>

Public lectures and panels <\/span><\/p>