Op-Ed from ECLAC Caribbean Girls in ICT Day 2023: Digital Skills for Life

By Diane Quarless[1]

May 2, 2023 – Diane Quarless is the Director of the Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) 27 April, people across the world are marking Girls in ICT Day with the theme “Digital skills for life”. This day was created to encourage and empower girls and young women to become users and creators in the digital world.

In the Caribbean, we have very little data on who is using digital technologies and the Internet. Sex-disaggregated data is only available for a few countries in the databases of the International Telecommunication Union, but we do not know if this is representative for the whole Caribbean. At least for certain age groups, the countries for which we have data have achieved parity between men and women. This is promising but must be taken with caution, as globally, we see a large, and expanding, gender gap in internet use.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which increased inequality in societies across the world, is partly responsible for this widening gender gap. Digital and social inequality are inextricably linked, and as noted in the United Nations Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, “Digital divides reflect and amplify existing social, cultural and economic inequalities”. The COVID-19 pandemic has had disproportionately negative effects on women across the Americas, including on women’s quality of life.

For example, in the Caribbean, more female-headed households reported have been going to bed hungry or eating less healthy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an increase in domestic violence towards women was also observed. Both the economic situation and domestic violence correlate with a more limited access to and use of digital technologies and the Internet. As such, it is possible that the ability and freedom of women and girls in the Caribbean to access and use digital technologies has reduced since 2020. This is deeply concerning.

In addition to addressing gaps in access and use, we also need to consider the quality of the online experience for women and girls. Girls worldwide are growing up in, or seeking to enter, an online environment that is highly unfavourable to them. Globally, we observed that gendered disinformation is on the rise, with women being targeted more often and more viciously than men. Outspoken women and girls, such as politicians, journalists or activists, or that have intersecting identities, have been shown to receive even more of these attacks. This is also true in the Americas.

Given the diverse racial and ethnic makeup of the Caribbean region, it will be important to monitor the quality of the online experience for Caribbean people, so that we can address this issue and provide support to those affected. This will require the collection of data disaggregated by sex, race or ethnicity, disability status, age, and more, and an intersectional analysis of this data.