Use of ICT Among Women Rise But Challenges Remain

Women in Africa are undeniably participating in the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution and they are doing so in many and varied ways; the changes that the use of these tools have brought about are visible everywhere.

Furthermore, the prospects of ICTs for development and women's empowerment seem promising. Yet women's stories about their experiences and use of these tools are not heard.

While the Mozambican women are making constructive use of the mobile phone and community radio, most rural women do not find computer-related ICTs (computers, e-mail and the Internet) particularly relevant or sufficiently useful to their immediate survival needs.

In some cases these women are unaware of the possibilities of computer-related ICTs, a study recently released says. 

The study says while women have already started appropriating the mobile phone, finding their own ways to overcome difficulties of literacy, language and costs, working together and using it as a tool for expanding their assets and capabilities with no need for technical training or back-up, this is not however reflected in ICT. 

"Perhaps this is the best example of self-empowerment through utilizing new ICTs - which is not happening with computer-related ICTs, given the way they are presented to rural women. We are of the opinion that rural women cannot appropriate computer-related ICTs and consequently be empowered by them unless much more attention is given to making computer-related technologies and tools useful for them," say study authors.  

A number of gender studies have shown that the main users of ICT (especially computers, Internet and e-mail) are young males, and that women are marginal users, suggesting a gap between discourse and the reality of women's empowerment through ICT.  

With the use of landline phones declining owing to people's limited purchasing power, especially in the rural areas, and the rapid expansion of the mobile network, there seem to be two main reasons why even poor women find the mobile phone beneficial: its mobility, which means that they can save time, using it without having to abandon their workplaces; and the fact that their key contacts, clients or suppliers also have them - so they can interact directly rather than having to travel, leave messages or queue at a public phone at an agreed time to receive a call.  

The same is true regarding contact with family members in Mozambique and abroad. In Manhiça, a district about 80 kilometers South of Maputo, women whose husbands are working in South Africa were found communicating with them via mobile phone.  

The female sellers in the markets use mobile phones for business matters and to communicate with work colleagues. 

For example, market sellers of xicadju (fermented cashew juice) in Manhiça, who buy to resell, use mobile phones to tell their suppliers in Gaza Province that they need more stock, ending the need for long and sometimes fruitless journeys. 

A representative of a women's organization in Manhiça told us that: ‘For me, the cellular telephone is my feet, my work.'

She uses the mobile phone to communicate with her members, wherever they are. Mobile phones are also helping poor women to increase their incomes in various ways: cost-effective communications help their trading, while the emergence of a market in phone use has opened up a space for women to establish small businesses. 

Family contacts can also resolve economic problems, as when Manhiça women call South Africa to ask relatives for emergency food supplies.

Thus, through mobile phones women are enhancing their capacity to provide assets that help them resolve their major daily concerns, in a socio-economic process that increases their autonomy. 

ICT-related tools, namely computers, e-mail and the Internet, were essentially available in the telecentres or at a few workplaces; outside of the telecentres the only female users are a minority of educated women.

It was surprising to find from the individual interviews, however, that even when women have access, they make little use of it at work because of ‘lack of time'. 

These technologies are currently presented with limited content about issues relating to rural women's survival (e.g. information for small business and agriculture), and limited usability and mobility. 

If these factors were corrected, women might more easily use computer-related ICTs, within their constraints of time, money and skills.  

For rural women computer-related ICTs present limited communication facilities compared to mobile phones, which women can use to talk and exchange their daily worries concerning survival. 

The authors say changes need to be made in this society, where women are fighting for survival, otherwise the digital gender gap will grow.