UN panel cites social norms, costs among barriers to digital inclusion of poor women
New Delhi: Wide gender gaps in access to the internet as well as mobile phone ownership threaten to “leave women behind” as countries develop, says a report by the UN high-level panel, calling for digital inclusion, especially of poor women, to achieve one of the key Sustainable Development Goals — economic empowerment of women — by 2030.
“Worldwide, some 2.3 billion women do not have internet access and more than 1.7 billion do not own a mobile phone. Some 200 million fewer women than men have online access or mobile phones”, says the recent report “Leave No One Behind’.
Pointing out that globally women on average are 14 per cent less likely than men to own a mobile phone, the report said in South Asia, this gap was at 38 per cent, with only 43 per cent women owning smartphones.
Social norms
Prevalent social norms that deem digital use as “inappropriate” for women, such as in India, was also a key factor impeding the use of internet by women, the report said.
“In Egypt and India, women were up to six times more likely than women in Uganda to report that internet was not appropriate for them or that their friends and family would disapprove of their using it.”
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