KAMPALA – About 90 per cent of adolescent girls and young women do not use the internet in low-income countries, while their male peers are twice as likely to be online, according to a new UNICEF analysis report issued on International Day of Girls in ICT.
The report – Bridging the Digital Divide: Challenges and an Urgent Call for Action for Equitable Digital Skills Development – takes a close look at the gender digital divide among young people aged 15-24 years by analysing available data on internet use, mobile phone ownership, and digital skills in mostly low-, lower-middle-, and some middle-income economies.
Although more gender-disaggregated data is needed to better monitor, understand, and work toward digital inclusion, the report finds that girls are being left behind in an increasingly digital and connected world.
“Closing the digital divide between girls and boys is about more than just having access to the internet and technology. It’s about empowering girls to become innovators, creators, and leaders,” said UNICEF Director of Education Mr Robert Jenkins.
“If we want to tackle gender gaps in the labour market, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math fields, we must start now by helping young people, especially girls, gain digital skills.”
While advancing access to the internet is important, it remains insufficient for digital skills training, for example, in most countries analysed, the share of youth with access to the internet at home is much higher than that of youth with digital skills.
Girls are the least likely to have the opportunities to develop the skills needed for 21st-century learning and employment, according to the report.
“And on average across 32 countries and territories, girls are 35 per cent less likely than their male peers to have digital skills, including simple activities like copying or pasting files or folders, sending emails, or transferring files,” the report adds in part.
The report says that the root barriers are far deeper than a lack of access to the internet and the findings suggest that educational and family environments play a critical role in the gender digital divide.
“For example, even within the same home, girls are far less likely than boys to access and be able to make full use of the internet and digital technologies. Among 41 countries and territories included in the analysis, households are much more likely to provide mobile phones for boys than girls,” the report adds.
The report says further that barriers to accessing opportunities to higher learning and the labour market, pervasive discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes, and concerns over online safety may further restrict girls’ digital inclusion and skills development.
The report also argues that even when girls have equitable access to gain foundational reading and math skills – and perform on par or better than their male peers –it does not always translate to digital skills.
“And to break the barriers holding girls back, they need early exposure and access to technology, digital and life skills training, and efforts that address harmful gender stereotypes, especially within families, and online violence,” reads the report accessed by UG Standard.
UNICEF is now calling upon governments and partners to close the gender divide and ensure that girls have the opportunities to succeed in a digital world and recommends that girls be taught digital skills equally to girls and boys in and out of school, including community programmes, girls be given safety online through virtual safe spaces, policies and laws, and education and that promotion of girls’ access to peer learning, mentoring, internships and job shadowing in the digital/STEM world be implemented.
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