Raising her voice

Raising her voice

                                      

Earlier this year, a 23-year-old Bangladeshi woman needed help. She was pregnant and didn’t know if it was safe to drink the water from her local well. She opened Maya — an app that answers anonymous questions about everything from health to legal protection. She got the advice she needed, and she’s about to give birth after a healthy pregnancy.

For women who are cut off from information, services like Maya are a light in the dark. They can be the difference between having a normal pregnancy and facing unnecessary risks — or between knowing their rights and being exploited. The internet is the invisible force driving advancement for women around the world. Take education. Research shows that educated women have healthier families, earn larger incomes, and create more economic growth. Yet, two-thirds of the world’s illiterate are women.

The internet opens up a world of knowledge, from digital books and Wikipedia to online courses. Research shows that when women have access to reading apps, they use them significantly more than men.

Becoming connected also opens up economic opportunities. In a survey of large developing countries, nearly half of the women who were connected had applied for a job on the internet, and nearly a third had earned extra income online. Women use the internet to start businesses. On the South African site SmartBusiness, which helps entrepreneurs, women make up 28 per cent of the users — and ask more than 60 per cent of the questions. Armed with information, women grow our economies. In India, the online store Pelli Poola Jada was started three years ago by three women. Today, they employ 200 more.

Empowering women economically isn’t just good for them, it’s good for everyone. Improving women’s access to income and technology improves child welfare and nutrition. Research shows that countries with more equality in employment and education have lower child mortality and faster economic growth.

The internet also gives women voice — and allows their voices to be heard. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Hero Women set up their own internet café to tell their stories, and they successfully petitioned for the appointment of a US special envoy to the war-torn region. In Kenya, women set up Her Voice to fight gender-based violence by advocating for legal reform and working with victim support groups. In Brazil, women created I Will Not Shut Up, an app that maps assaults on women so that community leaders can be held accountable.