Mobiles For Gender Empowerment

This is a remarkable story but one that makes sense. The ability to communicate with the broader world empowers people; abused women who can call friends realize they are not as helpless as they might think. In a similar way recent immigrants to Canada may not realize they are not alone and that suggests building links, electronic or otherwise, with the broader community, are valuable.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49537

Mobiles For Gender Empowerment
by Gagandeep Johar, New Delhi,

The Indian Government should consider providing mobile phones at a subsidy to women from the bottom of the pyramid since it helps improve their status and welfare, says a recent report. 

According to a Stanford University study titled 'The Impact of Mobile Phones on the status of women in India', mobile phones significantly decrease both men and women's tolerance of domestic violence.

"Phones may empower women by giving them better access to social services. Given the privacy of talking on the phone, women can more easily report domestic violence or consult family planning agencies," says the report by Dayoung Lee of the university's department of economics.

Besides, "unlike other ICT devices, mobile phones do not require literacy or sophisticated skills that many women lack"... . The report further states that mobile phones help increase women's autonomy in mobility and economic independence, but does not have any significant effect on child preferences and other measures of autonomy.

Nilanju Dutta of Jagori, a women's training, documentation, communication and resource centre, corroborates this. The New Delhi-based organisation has done a lot of work in domestic violence and runs a counseling centre. "We have started tracking the phone calls since around three-to-four months back, and almost 50 percent of the calls come from mobile phones."

"My husband beats me regularly. The lady I work for took pity on me and gave me an old mobile phone. She told me in front of my husband that if ever my husband troubles me, I should just call her. I wouldn't say that my troubles have vanished, but the beatings have certainly reduced," says Meena Padhan, 30, a domestic worker who lives in Masudpur village, south Delhi, and works in a middle class neighbourhood.

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Statistical analysis shows that gender has a significant impact on mobile phone adoption at the bottom of the pyramid in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Consequently, in this segment, 12 males have access to mobile phones in comparison to five females.
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