🪡 Documentation

Session Three: All about rights ICT Laws, human rights, social justice and feminism

In this session, we have Pavitra and Veronica talking about the concept of human rights and their international framework, how ICT development has impacted human rights, as well as the ICT policy landscape related to human rights at the global, national and regional levels. 

Human rights are defined as norms, principles, or entitlements that are inherent to all humans, and they are universal, inalienable, and indivisible. These rights are interconnected and interdependent. It is important to understand that not one right is more important than the other.

Human rights are important as it ensures the minimum guarantee of our rights. It is not something to aspire to or demand from the government, but they are rights that we should already have. It ensures that basic needs are met, vulnerable groups are protected from abuse etc. as human rights say that everyone must be given equal treatment. The concept of human rights also will be able to hold those in power accountable. 

Pavitra then spoke about the human rights framework in international, regional, and national contexts which includes UDHR, ICCPR, ICERD, CEDAW, CRC, ECHR, and constitutions and national laws. All of these frameworks apply to individuals as the rights holders, the governments, and the businesses and corporations. 

Some governments may impose restrictions on rights due to reasons such as morality, public order, general welfare etc. but there are standards for permissible limitations such as legality, necessity, and proportionality, in pursuit of a legitimate aim.

Vero then took over to present the section on the impact of ICT on human rights. She posed the question: How has the pandemic changed your online rights, and what measures were taken by your state?

Some answers:

• Education and work moved online, but some people may not have smartphones. This impacted their access especially since they have to register for vaccination online. 
• Affected the work of migrant workers because most of the work has shifted online
• Many workshops and resources shifted online during the pandemic, benefitting a group of feminist activists who ‘discovered’ the term OGBV, and how to keep themselves safe through privacy and security initiatives and talking about harassment online and measures to mitigate them 
• We must also be able to disconnect! Labour rights should be reviewed as most work shifts online and people work longer hours. 
• Pandemic brought much more access to people with disabilities 
• The issue of the digital divide and inequality in access for elderly people 

Vero then presented on ICT policy and human rights, which deals with policy issues interconnected with digital technologies. Policies are often decided by many stakeholders in a process called multistakeholderism. ICT policies are increasingly addressed globally as people are recognising the relevance and impact of digital technologies across the range of human rights.

Vero also spoke of a rights-based approach to ICT, an approach to the internet and ICT that recognises the internet as an enabler of human rights and that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. It also recognises the intersectional approach, where it recognises the multiple aspects of identity that intersect and enrich our lives and experiences, at the same time creating a complex system of oppression and marginalisation. 

The mentees are then given an exercise in groups and were invited to speak in the plenary about their reflections. Some input: 

• It was hard to establish positive impacts when listing down the rights impact 
• The measure can protect certain groups from violence, but can also affect others if there are no specific laws 
• The situation can cause overall isolation and limitation that can cause grievances to the people in the area 

In concluding the session, Pavi mentioned that this exercise was to frame this from the POV of all rights impacted. In extension to this, it can also help us to assess the decisions made by the states and businesses to ensure human rights violations do not happen. 

Memorable Quotes

“Governments often use terms like morality, public order, and many others to restrict our rights. These terms are vague, undefined, and quite broad.” — Pavitra

“We live mostly online these days, especially for work, it is important that we are also able to disconnect.” - Adriana 

“If inequality and inequity already exist without the Internet, with the Internet we can see clearly that this is a big problem.” — Rachel

“In 2012, the UN Human Rights Council affirmed that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online.” — Vero

“We must put people in the centre of ICT processes and policy, to ensure voices are heard and participatory in nature as well as being able to hold states and business accountable.” — Vero

“The only window to the outside world for many women happens to be social media.” — Vero, quoting Arshie Qureschi, writer and feminist activist from Kashmir

“The ICTs are evolving so fast at exponential speed, we need to understand how we can hold them in a container that also makes our lives easier because they were here to support our quality of life. How can we use ICTs as a way for more joy and pleasure, at the same time navigating a space of oppression and violence?” — Cynthia

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Session Four: Feminism and policy, what is feminist policy-making?

In this session, Debora and Paula spoke about feminist initiatives in policy by providing the concepts and examples of a case study in cybersecurity and then invited the participants to reimagine the possibilities of feminist approaches in participants’ context.

Debora started by asking the room: what do we mean when we refer to feminist policy-making? Some answers:

• Policymaking that considers the lived experiences of women and gender-diverse people of all intersections 
• Gender inclusion
• A list of suggestions and recommendations that consider the lived experiences of many people since they are all different
• Policy making that considers the experiences of women and other marginalised groups as a basis for policy. 

Debora mentioned that while feminist policymaking can cater to the lived experiences of many people, it can be much broader than that. 

She then shared her experiences doing community networks where they implemented wi-fi in the quilombo community in Brazil. Using participatory and action processes inspired by the works of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, they adopted feminist processes like having women circles as well as mixed groups, considering the encounter of people with different backgrounds and oppressions and privileges. They also often question themselves — what does it mean to be feminist? How does this extend to the communities they work with? 

A few things she had learned while working with community networks: 

• Listening — active listening, avoid a top-down approach, there is no one size fits all solution to complex problems. They also did not view conflicts negatively, but more of the opportunities to fix things in a communal way  
• Power relations — mindful of the power relations especially as a group of white women entering the community of indigenous people with the privileges of race and finance etc.
• Rights — CN goes beyond connectivity, and also can be a way to create individual and collective agency. What rights are important to bring the network back to the territory?
• Alliance — understand to think there is no one size fits all solutions, so we must work with all intersections possible 
• Colonial, binary, and unequal legacies — many CN happen between the encounter of so many people, and imbalances are bound to happen so we need to think of ways to challenge these exclusionary colonial ways of thinking
• Local vs global — many ppl try to reduce the global experience to known scalable experiences. There is a need to consider the local lived experiences in order to build a policy that suits their own lives.

Paula then shared her experiences working in the policy space, with the case study of cybersecurity. Unlike Debora’s case where it is a bottom-down approach, policy spaces work in a top-down approach where women and gender diverse groups are often not present and use languages and jargon that are often so technical. Thus Paula’s work at APC involved being an intermediary to these communities in the policy spaces. 

A few things she learned while working on a case involving cyber security: 

• Defining the problem — need to question and dispute the traditional definition of cyber security that often focuses on defence and military purposes, and consider the harm it could be to ordinary people
• Intermediaries — Paula’s work at APC involved being an intermediary to these communities in the policy spaces. Representing the communities in these policy spaces and bringing their concerns to the front. 
• Beyond tech — need to discuss the definition beyond tech as when it involves women and gender diverse groups things like care, lived experiences, and quality of life are often involved 
• Systemic change — Without systemic change, the risk will not go away. It does not matter how sophisticated the tech is to solve things, we still need to take a look at root causes. We need to also create a safer environment for the internet. 
• Express commitment to intersectional gender approach —
• Agency — people were often referred to as objects in the policy. There needs to be recognition of people’s agency and autonomy in the process. 
• Linking agendas and movements — there is a need to link cybersecurity with other agendas and movements and to bring feminist and human rights movements into other struggles
• A gender perspective has a transformative vocation —  there is a need to put explicit commitment to gender, intersectional perspective in policy making. There are already some changes where international treaties mentioned when states do cybersecurity strategies, they need to take gender into consideration. 

Mentees are then put in breakout groups to answer these questions to report back in plenary:

In 10 years:

• What kind of internet connectivity will be available for your community/ country?
• How can it impact community life?
• How can it impact the environment?
• Will it impact different people equally? (e.g. considering age, gender, race etc.)

Some reimaginings from the report back: 

• More meaningful connectivity, as people are becoming more accepting on how it is key in bringing people together and with current governments having more initiative to address more connected for people
• The digital divide keeps growing — devices are available but expensive, policies only look good on paper but implementation is not there
• Connectivity will decrease isolation, increase communication and engagement
• More internet connectivity, education, different languages, the opportunity to tell their own stories, more equitable internet, and resources 
• Women-focused groups are more empowered to take decisions and be able to speak better
• People of different ages can learn and share knowledge with each other 
• Acknowledge the marginalisation of people and how it has set them back and to bring them fwd 
• Connectivity will be more easily accessible, especially for those in remote areas
• People can get more information and data and easily be accessed by the community 
• Connectivity can help people to access information easily, but it can also mean there will be less direct interaction in the community
• The ease of the internet has an impact on the policies that must be provided by the state in the protection of every personal data
• The impact will also include elderly groups and need to consider all the diversity of people including local languages, ethnicity and religions etc.

In concluding the session, Debora invited the mentees to reflect on the future they aimed for in the next few sessions, in relation to the internet and human rights. 

Memorable Quotes

“Feminist process is a constant effort. We have to remind ourselves that being a feminist is not a physical condition, more than just what we say, or just a space, but it means to do a constant search for more balance and relationship and ethical practice.” — Debora

“Without systemic change, the risk will not go away. It does not matter how sophisticated the tech is to solve things, we still need to take a look at root causes.” — Paula

“The bottom line is learning gender perspective is a transformative vocation. It is not only about adding how we are affected by this. That is to what feminist policymaking is,  it is about transforming the way we look at the whole thing.” — Paula

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