In 2021, we are helping women and others of diverse sexualities and genders engage, shape and co-create the Internet and virtual technologies that reflect and respond to their lived realities.
The Take Back the Technology program! (TBTT) celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2021. As every year, the crusade took positions from November 25 to December 10, this time around the theme #TechJoy.
The theme of this crusade is an invitation to focus the importance of joy in the search for a feminist internet, transforming resistance into the joy that fuels our activism and our lived realities.
The crusade called on activists to highlight the tactics we revel in with joy through our use of generation, not only as users but also as creators. For this, activists participated in live tweets about disability, sexuality and generation and played with consultation cards, artists brought the joy of the generation through anti-corporatism, protection practices, accessibility, technological subversion and more.
As every year, activists placed special emphasis on vital days such as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November), International Day of Women Human Rights Defenders (29 November), World AIDS Day (1 December), World Disability Day, World Human Rights Day (3 December) and World Human Rights Day (10 December). to highlight the issues and highlight their intersection with #TechJoy whenever possible.
The TBTT 2021 crusade also involved its network in new spaces of interest at the intersection of gender and generation such as gender disinformation, virtual extractivism, the environment and the internet, which generated a higher point of interest, apparently that the TBTT network and its allies are eager to deepen their knowledge of these new spaces.
In 2021, Brazil’s Transfeminist Digital Care Network created Gincana Monstra (Freak Gymkhana), a fully synchronous and asynchronous online procedure that promoted virtual care for feminist activists.
During the 8 weeks of the process there were exchanges and learnings about virtual and ancestral technologies, methods and security, territoriality, transcentrality and intergenerational knowledge, based on the participants’ own experiences, cosmoperceptions and feelings.
Aimed at others seeking to be virtual care multipliers, the Transfeminist Network selected 27 cis and trans women and other non-binary people, mostly black, aged 18 to 57, from the northern and northeastern regions of Brazil.
APC participated in the Gymkhana Monstra by organizing global meetings for the Transfeminist Network to exchange concepts with the global running shoe network Feminist Tech eXchange (FTX). These meetings allowed for a deeper exploration of feminist virtual security methodologies and care infrastructure, and a greater powerful network for and through feminist virtual security facilitators.
The 2021 collaboration with APC enabled the Transfeminist Network to scale up context-specific responses in local languages to Brazilian communities excluded from opportunities, link them with global feminist trainers, and expand and document local artistic methodologies. APC also funded the translation of FTX: Reboot Security into Portuguese, enabling its use in local, Portuguese-speaking contexts.
In addition, APC functioned as a liaison between the global donor and transfeminist netpaintings to publicize their paintings and mobilize more budget for infrastructure that would remain in Brazil and benefit communities.
Following the study reports presented in 2020 and with money from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the partners of the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) presented the remaining reports, achieving a total of 8 study projects addressing online gender-based violence, access, economy and labour, and datification in countries such as Brazil. Bulgaria, India, Malaysia, Rwanda and five sub-Saharan African countries, namely Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.
All the findings of these studies were accompanied by a summary that can be used for the progression of policy methods in the domain of studies of feminist interest from a world of the South.
From August 2021, all effects will be available on an online page that allows visitors not only to download study reports, but also to browse through effects, study questions, rationale and objectives, policy advocacy recommendations, moral framework, and feminist methods. . the collection and studies of the knowledge used, as well as design fabrics and dissemination products.
In 2021, APC also presented the FIRN meta-studies with findings on the method and ethics of feminist studies across all study projects, offering a learning foundation for new iterations of feminist networks of scholars. To contribute to and complement those wisdom-building efforts. , GenderIT. org published 24 articles in English and Spanish with a specificity on the thematic spaces of FIRN.
Our Voices, Our Futures (OVOF), a consortium led by the global South comprising CREA, APC, UHAI -The East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative and WO=MEN, complemented through its strategic partner IM-Defensoras, has taken decisive steps in its purpose to amplify the voices of structurally silenced women in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda to participate in 3 key areas: online area, physical public area and legal and political area.
One of OVO’s methods of achieving renewal is the generation’s strategic use to open and secure online areas, bringing feminist technological expertise to all of its works, as well as to its local partners in six countries. One strategy for the moment is the creation of movements for collective agenda-building and collaborative efforts. As a result of the intersection of the two methods, in 2021, OVOF presented some of its partners with the first opportunity to organize hybrid events, with attendees and speakers joining in the user or online. Thinking about APC On how a hybrid area works, partners felt confident in their ability to host larger events nationwide in the hybrid version.
Another concrete impact on the results of this initiative in 2021 is increased awareness and tangible change in the way communities see technology, not only as a tool but also as an area to be occupied, which is reflected from the very act of funding. . , assist and conduct research.
Another key milestone in 2021 when running with others from structurally silenced and marginalized communities connected to investment opportunities: partners who are unregistered collectives or who register for security reasons and/or their values and political positions, as some of them are criminalized in their respective countries, have discovered through the consortium the opportunity to offload investments more freely in the way the money, in a way that has allowed them to work meaningfully on online freedom of expression and movement building.
Following virtual security education sessions, Pollicy, in partnership with the Paradigm Initiative (with monetary support from Hivos Digital Defenders), created an interactive fictional game that allows African women to explore and be informed about existing virtual security threats.
Digital Safe-Tea, whose call is an acronym for “virtual security” and “tea”, is based on the story of 3 characters: Aisha, Goitse and Dami, who are based on other archetypes of African women. When players enter the global of those 3 characters, they face virtual risks like a hijacked convention call session, identity theft, and even the non-consensual exchange of intimate photographs (NCII), known as “revenge. “Once presented with a scenario, players are asked to decide their reaction to risk from the available options, as a way to move to the next level of the game. As players progress through the maze of risks, they are presented with classes on how to navigate such risks in genuine life. Players are also directed to sites and toolkits where they can deepen their wisdom on the topic of their choice. To play this game, go to virtualsafetea. com
During the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially after the lockdown, gender-based violence and domestic violence have increased considerably in Bangladesh. Many of the victims were domestic workers or “domestic helpers. “
With the help of an APC studies and cross-currers grant, Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment (VOICE) conducted a survey of two categories of domestic workers, namely resident and non-resident domestic workers, focusing on exploring gender-based violence. Experienced. She also explored the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on her health, adding access to immunization. The knowledge generated through the survey was used to write reports and infographics that were used in the promotion during the 16-day crusade. against gender violence, both online and offline.
In 2021, BlueLink officially launched the report “After the storm: how to restore political dialogue and support the discourse against online gender-based violence in Bulgaria”. researchers, as part of a work supported through APC, the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN).
In an online chat on 21 July 2021, representatives of Bulgarian and foreign institutions, civil society organisations, academics and women’s rights activists gathered here to discuss the findings and recommendations of the studies and received them as an effective opportunity to tackle gender-based violence on the internet. All agreed that there are no coherent policies in this area at European level. As Sami Nevala, policy coordinator at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, said: “The issues we are talking about today are not just Bulgaria. The demanding situations described in the report and the countermeasures taken can be implemented more widely in the European Union. “
With an APC Study and Crusade sub-grant, AZUR Développement carried out a Take Back the Tech!in the Republic of Congo to denounce gender-based violence, magnify the voices of survivors of violence and raise awareness about gender-based violence. violence using classic and virtual means.
The crusade mobilized young women and children and survivors of violence to oppose online violence by participating in situations requiring photographs and creating and disseminating messages calling for addressing gender-based violence. Offline violence to 4 one-stop shops for women and women victims of violence.
The Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) digital security workshop is one of Body and Data’s key activities to expand verbal exchange on virtual rights and provide hands-on education on virtual security tools. FTX workshop participants talk about the intersections of the Internet, sexuality and feminism.
In 2021, Body and Data hosted 3 FTX workshops with other communities: women, queer people, and Madhesh youth. (Madhesh refers to the southern Terai belt in Nepal, and the Madheshi are the ones who live in those regions. )FTX Madhesh was the first decentralized exchange since Kathmandu, and was a rich learning experience in which participants were able to better perceive issues such as access, censorship, surveillance and online violence from the attitude of the Madheshi community.
With the increasing use of online equipment as key equipment for the practice of journalism, the online vulnerability of professionals has also increased. This is even more true for several bloodhound women who have been subjected to an invasion of privacy, facing blackmail to silence their voices like bloodhounds.
With APC’s research and campaign grant, the Centre for Development and Information Technology (CITAD) organized trainings in Nigeria to build the capacity of women hounds to use the web safely, also helping to close the virtual gender gap. It also helped publicize women’s political inclusion, as it allowed them to better use online teams to campaign.
Strengthening the ability of bloodhounds to use the internet safely has helped keep the voices of ‘s in journalism.
With a study and cross-grant sub-scholarship from APC, PROTEGE QV organized two days of education in a hybrid format that strengthened the capacities of 20 media workers, giving them the wisdom and skills they need to stay safe in online environments.
The education provided students with a set of security techniques for covering their non-public knowledge and as a component of their career as journalists, and addressed the following key topics: coverage of non-public data and online privacy; the practice of sailing; secure Internet connections and devices. be careful with downloads; Choose and manage strong passwords. Understand non-unusual peak attacks and how to deal with them. and what to do if you lose a device or consciousness.
For PROTEGE QV, this education is also a contribution to closing the virtual gap between women newspaper hunters in Cameroon.
Bangladesh has over 120 million Internet subscribers, representing approximately 71% of the general population. Growth in web penetration and redundant bandwidth have expanded and the use of social media locally, however, as the web user base grows, online protection and violence issues arise in similar proportions.
Online violence is presented as a broader term that can come with cyberbullying, cyberbullying, cyber defamation, cyberbullying, cyber blackmail, email/profile hacking, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, web voyeurism, and domestic violence on the web, among others. other. Bytesforall knew about the expansion of this trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, as users stayed at home using the web for a variety of purposes, including education.
With the help of an APC study and campaign grant, Bytesforall Bangladesh continued to build on existing paintings made in 2019 by analysing the evolution of online gender-based violence during the pandemic, when users were most commonly indoors and using the web extensively. for various purposes. They surveyed more than one hundred female web users to map the prevalence, nature, scope and effects of gender-based online violence in the country’s online environment. The telltale effects of this survey were very important in informing Bytesforall’s follow-up paintings. in this pressure area.
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