Women's Equality & Digital Access: Rights To Expression WE-DARE

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The project involves two interrelated approaches: a) organising networking events and other in-depth stakeholder engagements to build an active research consortium of academics and practitioners focused on combating violence against women; and b) facilitating the co-creation of problem-solving digital innovations to be implemented and studied in a further phase of the project (post-October 2020).a) The networking events and stakeholder engagements with 10 network partners (NGOs and tech companies) will explore 4 interrelated dimensions: - Understanding women's rights in a digital context: By means of inclusive stakeholder dialogues taking place at a Roundtable and a Public Forum, we will explore how women's rights are constructed in online spaces and collective movements in South Africa and elsewhere, in order to identify the tacit roots of discrimination and victimization, and to understand how these may be reproduced, but could also be addressed, in digital settings.- Access: Through focus groups, we will identify the primary local barriers to access that undermines the agency of women in realising their rights and protecting themselves against violence and intimidation. We aim to understand both practical impediments like access to electricity, affordable data and instruments, as well as the more tacit cultural, social and individual factors that could undermine active participation in digital spaces. - Participation: The potential of digital platforms to enable easier access to government services, especially around healthcare and justice, can play an important role in upholding women's rights, protecting them against violence and intimidation, and offering avenues for recourse and support. We will explore how the participation of women in relevant policy platforms could be strengthened and streamlined, as well as what government and corporate policy changes may be needed to protect women's rights and voices online. - Speak-out & Action: Studying the ways in which women communicate in digital spaces will allow us to identify the factors that make women feel safe, supported and empowered to speak out against violence and discrimination. The Affect Lab brings detailed expertise on participation in online chat forums, and one of their post-doctoral researchers will study engagements on a specific forum focused on violence against women that will be created within the Values Chat APP, a mobile tool which was designed and launched in a previous round of funding. b) Our engagements with our business and NGO partners will go beyond networking events towards the co-creation of potential digital innovations. The goal would be to understand these organisations' current business models, services and approaches to digitalization. This will ensure that we do not reinvent the wheel, but rather productively build on lessons learnt and leverage these insights to co-create specific pilot projects that could be funded in further phases of the DIDA grant-cycle. For instance, working with Wiconnect will allow us to understand the complex relationship between access to electricity, data and education and explore the potential impact of strengthening women's access to and productive use of digital innovations. By studying Saya-Setona's activities, women's current participation as digital citizens will be explored in order to identify specific factors that could enhance government communication and women's access to government services. We will also work with Praekelt.com, who delivers digital community projects through its sister organisation, Praekelt.org, as well as with OpenUp, which is a civic tech organisation in South Africa focused on open data for active citizenry. By studying their successful digital interventions, particularly those targeted at women, we hope to gain insight into how digital participation can be scaled and supported, and which future interventions would best address the problem of violence against women.