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The International Peace Institute, in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations, Women Deliver, and Family Care International, hosted a policy forum entitled Prevention and Protection Save Lives: Girls, Women, and HIV on the sidelines of the 2011 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS on 8 June. HIV is now recognized as the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age, the forum aimed to identify and strengthen the response to HIV and raise awareness about the interconnectedness of women’s health issue in relation to the broader development agenda.
In South Africa, the nation with the largest number of young people living with HIV, the destructive nature of the epidemic can be better understood than anywhere else in the world. According to a global report released here yesterday by UNICEF and its partners, one in three young people newly infected with the virus each year is from either South Africa or Nigeria. The report – 'Opportunity in Crisis: Preventing HIV from early adolescence to young adulthood' – confirms that young people worldwide face a significant risk of HIV infection every day. And their vulnerability is heightened by failures to provide them with adequate information and essential services.
"In 2009 alone, these realities, gaps and inefficiencies in response translated to an estimated 890,000 new infections among young people worldwide," said UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Elhadj As Sy.
Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana, has reiterated the need for extra measures to be taken to accelerate the process of transformation and empowerment of women. Presenting her department's Budget Vote in Parliament on Tuesday, Xingwana said while women constitute more than 50 percent of the population, they remain severely underrepresented in decision making positions. She noted that women constitute less than 10 percent of CEOs and chairpersons of boards of companies listed in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and only hold less than 16 percent of directorship and 21 percent of executive management positions. "The number of better performing companies with 25 percent or more women directors and executive managers continues to decrease from 58 in 2008 to 37 companies in 2010. "We still have 27 JSE listed companies without even a single woman at directorship or executive management level ... We have to find measures to address this abnormality, which is a major indictment on transformation as far as it relates to women in South Africa," said a concerned Xingwana.
The Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX), an annual gathering facilitated by Women'sNet, is increasingly becoming a space for women's rights organisations and feminists to exchange Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills, new innovations and discuss policies. We spoke to Kathleen Dey, the Executive Director of Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust and Jenny Bell with Grace Ngema, both from Justice and Women on their participation in the FTX.
On February 2011, Women’sNet was approached by the organisers of Women in Leadership conference to give a talk on “wired women”, and demonstrate ways of using ICTs to network and disseminate information. The conference was attended by professional women from government, business and other sectors. Keen to hear how best they can leverage the use of ICTs to grow their enterprises and network. I could not start the discussion without touching on the politics of using technology, what it means for women today. To the more than hundred women in the room that day, access to ICTs was not an issue anymore. They have instant access! So what politics am I talking about? Surely I cannot still be crying digital divide?
Women’sNet has hosted the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) in South Africa for two years. The programme is aimed at building skills of feminists and women's rights organisations in the creative and strategic use of ICTs. The FTX also seeks to provide and create partnerships between advocates working on women's rightsThe first global Feminist Tech Exchange was held in November 2008, in Cape Town, South Africa. It brought together more than 100 advocates and activists from Asia Pacific, Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America working on women’s rights, feminism and communication rights
Women’sNet together with The Africa Craft Trust and Open Africa, is excited to announce the Mobile Technology for Craft Enterprise Development programme, funded by Ford Foundation. This two year programme launched early 2011 is still underway, with research to collect data in Limpopo, Kwa Zulu Natal and Mpumalanga taking place. The research seeks to draw on a wealth of South African crafters to paint a picture of the trends and the impact of using mobile technology for their enterprises.
Grace Ngema of Justice and Women participated in the Feminist Tech Exchange in 2009. Grace’s experience of the training was still positive four months after the training, she says “ I liked the way you designed the training because it made us to talk about our stories and to think about stories as a lobbying tool. It was a space that was paved for us by you so we could tell those stories to make change.”Justice and Women – is a nonprofit organisation working from Pietermaritzburg and Melmoth in KwaZulu Natal. The organisation works to achieve gender-justice with a specific focus on women’s property and socioeconomic rights. JAW started as a court-based service organisation, but has since expanded its work.
The Take Back the Tech! campaign has become an annual activity for Women’sNet and its partners. It is a global campaign that raises awareness on the link between ICTs and violence against women. In 2010, partner organisations and individuals joined Women’sNet to “Occupy Streets to Reclaim ICTs”. In order to do this, Women'sNet staged an outdoor internet café on Mirriam Makeba street in Johannesburg South Africa. Participants brought their laptops, mobile phones and cameras so that they could blog, send text messages and take pictures in support of the 16 Days of activism to end violence against women - during which they
created and published content online.
It was 10th December 2010, Human Rights Day. We took to the streets of Johannesburg, laptops, cameras and cellphones in hand. We occupied the streets. We blogged, blogged with the sun's glaretroubling us. But like many women in abusive relationships we endured, except for us this was fullfilling experience. We blogged, sent SMS's, blogged until strangers asked "why are you sitting in the sun, with laptops, its not safe". Streets and cyberspace are similar, they both are not safe, and we are here to transform them, we said!
The Saartjie Baartman Centre undertook a pilot digital diaries project during the period of August – December 2010 with seed funding provided by Women’sNet to design an ICT project under the banner of a global campaign - Take Back the Tech.
Statistics still shows that violence against women and girls is escalating. Some women rights organisations are working in finding ways to advocate for and empower women. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are proving to be a good strategy to use as they allow a wider reach. Fanisa Masia spoke to Lisa Vetten, Director at Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Center, to find out how they use ICTs for their Shukumisa campaign to combat violence against women
On the 9th of May 2010, People Oppossing Women Abuse (POWA) set up a social experience in a townhouse complex in Johannesburg, which was captured in a video and distributed on the internet. The video went viral. Fanisa Masia , Project Officer at Women'sNet spoke to POWA's training manager, Kodwa Tyiso about POWA's strategic use of Information and Communication Technologies in their work
With an estimated 10-million radio sets in South Africa, Community Radio Stations remain the most accessible and far reaching Information and Communications Technology tools in the country. This medium is not without “gender dynamics". Listeners are still exposed to content that is campaign driven. For instance, you hear so much about issues of gender based violence during the 25 November – 10 December 2010, an annual international campaign to end violence against women and children. During this time, women’s rights organisations are inundated with requests from radio stations to talk about violence against women, which otherwise is rare or does not happen after the campaign. South Africa now has over 100 community stations, broadcast in many different languages. This makes Community Radio Stations a great tool to use in advocating for social change
The Protection from Harassment Bill 2010 is welcomed as an improvement on the legal protection available to stalking victims. Stalking is an invisible crime, it is difficult to report as there often is no evidence, and hence it remains largely unreported.echnology is becoming a tool increasingly used as a tool in crimes of stalking and harassment. Cyber stalking, which refers to the use of the internet or other electronic tools to pursue another person, is made easier by the availability of personal information online. ICTs also provide stalkers an opportunity to remain anonymous or hide behind false profiles, which makes it difficult to identify the stalker. New technologies are also allowing strangers to enter your space, via these technologies stalkers can watch and track your movements.