Photo :webshot.
October 19, 2021
Andrew Campbell
Gender-based violence, hate speech, and disinformation are being used extensively online and offline to stifle or eliminate women's freedom of expression, according to an independent UN human rights expert who spoke to the General Assembly on October 18. In her report on gender justice and free expression, Ms. Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the protection of freedom of opinion and expression, stated that women's voices are suppressed, controlled, or punished explicitly by laws, policies, and discriminatory practices, and implicitly by social attitudes, cultural norms, and patriarchal values.
Ms. Khan is a well-known international advocate for human rights, gender equality, and social justice. She began her professional career with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where she worked at headquarters and in country operations for 21 years. From 2001 to 2009, she was the Secretary General of Amnesty International, and from 2012 to 2019, she was the Director-General of the International Development Law Organization. In 2011, she was a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York Law School, and from 2009 to 2015, she was the Chancellor of Salford University in England.
Ms. Khan's 26-page report titled "Promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression," which she presented to the General Assembly earlier on July 30, includes an important recommendation to states, international organizations, human rights bodies, civil society, and businesses: women, in all their diversity and intersectionality, must be present at the table when policies, laws, treaties, community standards, and regulations are developed. The voices of women must be heard.
She urged governments and social media platforms to act quickly and decisively to make digital spaces safe for all women and non-binary people while upholding international human rights law. She also urged states to close the gender digital divide, gender data gaps, and other barriers to women's access to information, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights information.