ICTs and Women’s Political Participation

The pushback against gender equality is one of the findings in a major report from UN Women, the UN agency for gender equality, on the progress made so far in advancing women’s rights worldwide.

This latest version of the study, which is updated every five years, comes at a time of great uncertainty, as several donors announce major funding cuts, leading to the disruption of essential services for women worldwide.

This article by  Fjola Zlatku was first published in Albanian by Portalb.mk and translated into English by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices an

British MP Jess Phillips describing the online attacks she has received from Elon Musk in recent days as “very, very, very tiring” will have struck a chord with many women. Powerful men trying to silence women happens so often that it rarely makes news.

From the United States to Italy, Britain, and Pakistan, female politicians are increasingly becoming victims of AI-generated deepfake pornography or sexualised images, in a troubling trend that researchers say threatens women’s participation in public life.

An online boom in non-consensual deepfakes is outpacing efforts to regulate the technology globally, experts say, with a proliferation of cheap artificial intelligence tools including photo apps digitally undressing women.