File photo; Media Foundation for West Africa
Rather than promoting issues regarding women and girl empowerment through the use of the internet, most women promote issues that are of little or no relevance to women empowerment, a study by the Media Foundation for West Africa [MFWA] has revealed.
At a workshop organized for representatives of women’s rights advocacy groups and journalists by the foundation, participants received training on techniques they can adopt to advocate the use the internet to their advantage of women nationwide.
According to facilitators of the workshop, “the under representation of women online by public and women themselves is appalling” thus the need to empower them because “no one tells stories better than women themselves.”
The workshop among other things seeks to encourage women to make public and widen their scope on the various internet platforms with information that would make women and girls stand out as far as their rights are concerned.
Ms Jemima Abdullai, a founding Director of Circumspect.com stressed that women should have an interest in technology in order to have a convergence between the digital and non-digital world.
“It is important for women to empower themselves by acquiring digital knowledge as well as skills on the use of technology. This is to enable use the internet as an effective informative tool.” Ms Abdullai said.
Journalists, especially, were advised to create awareness and deepen knowledge. One of the ways suggested was to highlight and celebrate role models, mainly women, making impact in the society.
The women’s right online project is under the MFWA’s Freedom of Expression Programme that promotes freedom of expression offline and online. The project is being funded by the World Wide Web Foundation.
