gisw13_chapters

Using ICTs in support of women’s rightsWomen’s empowerment is defined as “women’sability to make their strategic life choices wherethat ability had been previously denied them.” 20New ICT technologies have provided women opportunitiesto reorganise economic activities in waysthat can bypass the traditional male-dominatedsociety. In many examples, ICTs have opened upa direct window for women to the outside world.In 1972, the Self-Employed Women’s Association(SEWA), 21 a Gujarat-based organisation, was thefirst organisation to realise the potential of usingIT for growing productivity in the informal sector.In an effort to provide computer literacy to their“barefoot managers”, SEWA established its TechnologyCentres in 11 districts of Gujarat. The aimwas to build the capacity of women organisers andleaders and strengthen the micro enterprises ofSEWA members. While more and more women aregetting online, rural women who are remote fromthe urban centres are falling behind in the accessstakes.60 million women in India onlineOut of the total 150 million internetusers in the country, around 60 millionwomen in India are now online and usethe internet to manage their day-todaylife, according to a new report byGoogle India. Women have easy accessto internet at homes, cyber cafés andoffices and there is a growing adoptionof smartphones. Women who are onlineare relatively more affluent and younger– 75% are in the 15-34 age group, withover 24 million women accessing theinternet daily.Source: The Women & Web Study, GoogleIndia, 2013According to the National Family Health Survey,India has the highest number of cases of anaemia inthe world. Almost 79.1% of India’s children betweenthe ages of three and six and 56.2% of marriedwomen in the age group 15-49 were found to beanaemic in 2006. Almost 20% of maternal deathsare caused directly by iron-deficiency anaemia,which is a contributory factor in 20% more deaths.20 josiah.berkeley.edu/2007Fall/ER275/Readings/DP3/kabeerdev_ch-99.pdf21 www.sewa.orgIn an effort to bridge the gap in delivery ofhealth services, projects like e-Mamta, initiated bythe state government of Gujarat and the NationalRural Health Mission (NRHM), have enabled pregnantwomen to receive health information on theirmobile devices.The Datamation Foundation 22 initiated a projectfor Muslim women living in the slum areas of Delhiin 2003, and established an ICT centre to linkresource-poor women to the information and toolsfor knowledge management. This ICT centre hascreated self-confidence in women, an awareness oftheir interesting lives, and enabled them to take collectivedecisions.A Pune-based voluntary organisation, SavitriMarketing Institution for Ladies Empowerment(SMILE), has enabled women entrepreneurs to selltheir products like soft toys, candles, bags, utilityitems, etc. 23This revolution in the use of ICTs is not only limitedto urban-centric women’s organisations, buthas also inspired rural women, particularly thosewho are poor and illiterate. One example is of a55-year school dropout, Norti Bai, living in a desertstate of western India, Rajasthan. She can hardlyspeak any language besides her local dialect, butshe uses a computer to disseminate water-relatedinformation to 11 villages. 24In India, there are 700 million mobile phone subscribers,and 97 million people access the internetthrough their mobile phones. With the revolution ofthe mobile phone in India as an affordable means ofcommunication, Indian women have started usingmobile phones not only as a social communicationtool but also as a tool to communicate with frontlinehealth workers, receiving health information, safetyalerts, etc.Women community health workers in Biharstate use an interactive voice response (IVR) featureon the mobile phone with special-coded keys,called Mobile Kunji, to communicate with pregnantwomen while counselling them. 25 The mobile app,Helpls, allows women to ask for help when they arein danger even if they do not have internet access.Last year’s brutal rape and murder of a 23-yearoldgirl in Delhi sparked a nationwide outcry.Women’s organisations, activists, media groups andprotestors joined together over the issue of women’ssafety and security, not only through offline vigils, but22 Datamation Foundation: www.datamationfoundation.org23 SMILE Foundation: smilepune.org/24 Norti Bai: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2940242.stm25 Mobile Kunji: www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/where_we_work/asia/india/india_sdp_empowering_chw_ma_mk.html131 / Global Information Society Watch