Centre for Internet and Society

Workshop on Feminist Information Infrastructure

ambika — 2019-07-09T15:35:24Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) organised a workshop on feminist infrastructure in collaboration with Blank Noise and Sangama, on 29th October, 2018. The purpose of the workshop was to disseminate the findings from a two-month long project being undertaken by researchers at Blank Noise and Sangama, with research support and training from CIS.

A group of five researchers, one from Blank Noise and four from Sangama, presented their research on different aspects of feminist infrastructure. The workshop was attended by a diverse group of participants, including activists, academics, and representatives from civil society organisations and trade unions.

Feminist infrastructure is a broadly conceptualised term referring to infrastructure that is designed by, and keeping in mind the needs of, diverse social groups with different kinds of marginality. In the field of technology, efforts to conceptualise feminist infrastructure have ranged from rethinking basic technological infrastructure, such as feminist spectrum , to community networks and tools for mobilisation . This project aimed to explore the imagination of feminist infrastructure in the context of different marginalities and lived experiences. Rather than limiting intersectionality to the subject of the research, as with most other feminist projects, this project aimed to produce knowledge from the ‘standpoint’ of those with the lived experience of marginalisation.

This report by Ambika Tandon was edited by Gurshabad Grover and designed by Saumyaa Naidu. The full report can be downloaded here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ambika-tandon-may-9-2019-workshop-on-feminist-information-infrastructure

Women's Safety? There is an App for That

rohini — 2017-01-10T02:48:34Z

“After locking ourselves in a room for more than 6 days, this is what we came out [sic] with. Join us in helping make WOMEN feel SAFE,” read a gloating press release about a smartphone app for women to notify their near ones that they were in distress. It was one among many such PRs frequently landing in my mailbox after the rape and murder of a young student on board a private bus in Delhi in 2012.

The article by Rohini Lakshané was published in Gender IT.org on May 19, 2016. This was also mirrored by Feminism in India on January 9, 2017.

The incident had spurred protests across the country and made international headlines. Along with all this came a slew of new “women’s safety” apps. Existing ones, many of which had fizzled out, were conveniently relaunched. My own experience of user-testing such apps in India back then was that they were unreliable at best and dangerously counterproductive at worst. Some of them were endorsed by governments and celebrities and ended up being glorified despite their flaws, their technical and systemic handicaps never acknowledged at all.

There are myriad mobile phone apps meant to be deployed for personal safety, but their basic functioning is more or less the same: the user activates the app (by pressing a button, shaking the device or similar cue), which sends a distress message containing the users’ location to pre-defined contacts. Some apps include additional artefacts such as a short audio or video recording of the situation. Some others augment this mechanism by alerting the police and other agencies best placed to respond to the emergency. For example, the Companion app for students living on campus notifies the university along with police. The SOS buttons in taxi-hailing apps such as Uber enable the user’s contacts to follow the cab’s GPS trail and notify them and the cab company’s “incident response team” of emergencies. Apps such as Kitestring would treat the lack of the user’s response within a time-window as the trigger for a distress message. All their technical wizardry perhaps makes it easy to lose sight of the fact that technology is not a saviour but a tool or an enabler, that technology alone cannot be the panacea of a problem that is deeply complex and, in reality, rooted in society and governance.

The Indian government announced last month that every phone sold in the country from January 2017 should be equipped with a panic button that sends distress flares to the police and a trusted set of contacts. Nearly half the phones sold in India cost USD 100 or less. Prices are kept so low by sacrificing features and the quality of the hardware; there are a lot of phones with substandard GPS modules, poor touchscreens, slow processors, bad cameras, tiny memory, and dismal battery life. They run on different versions of different operating systems, some of them outdated. All of these factors would determine if someone is able to use the app at all and how quickly they and their phone would be able to respond to an emergency. Additionally, mobile phone signals become thin or shaky in areas with a high number of users and buildings located cheek-by-jowl. Even when the mobile hardware is good and the mobile signal usable, GPS accuracy can be spotty and constant location tracking would hog battery. These issues would affect the efficacy of any app. Besides, there is too much uncertainty for an app developer to factor in. (Two years ago, I learnt about an app called Pukar, then operational in collaboration with police departments in four cities in India. Pukar solved the problem of potential inaccuracy of the GPS location by getting the user’s contacts to tell the police where the person in distress might be.) Designing a one-size-fits-all safety app is almost impossible. The app that rings a loud alarm when triggered may save someone’s life or spoil the chances of someone who is trying to get help while hiding. Different people may be vulnerable to different kinds of distress situations and an app can at best be optimised for some target user groups.

An app that does not work in tandem with existing machinery for law enforcement and public safety is a bad idea.

In the end, the “technical” problems may actually be problems of economic disparity. Making it mandatory for people to own phones equipped with certain hardware or requiring them to upgrade to more reliable devices would drive the phones out of the financial reach of many. Indian manufacturers have expressed concerns that the proposed panic button would raise costs for them as well the end buyers. Popularising a downloadable app and informing its target users how to install and work it correctly needs a marketing blitzkrieg, which is something only the state or well-funded developers can afford. The New Delhi police department runs a dedicated control room for reports arriving from its safety app, Himmat (the word for courage in many Indian languages). It’s an expensive affair.

An app that does not work in tandem with existing machinery for law enforcement and public safety is a bad idea. It puts the onus of “keeping women safe” on members of their social circles or on intermediaries and private parties such as cab companies, while absolving law enforcement agencies of their failing to provide security. It opens doors to victim blaming in case someone is unable to use the app at the right time in the right way, or if the app fails.

On the contrary, an app that does loop in the police raises concerns about surveillance and protection of data available to the police, which is especially problematic in places such as India where there is no law for privacy or data protection. Alwar, one of the cities where Pukar was implemented, is super-populated with a large geographical area and a high crime rate. Police departments in such places tend to be overworked and understaffed. Without significant policing reforms, it is questionable whether they will be able to respond in time. A sting operation done by two media outlets on 30 senior officials of the New Delhi police department in 2012 showed the cops blaming victims of sexual violence with gay abandon. “If girls don't stay within their boundaries, if they don't wear appropriate clothes, then naturally there is attraction. This attraction makes men aggressive, prompting them to just do it [sexual assault]," reads one of their nuggets. “It's never easy for the victim [to complain to the police]. Everyone is scared of humiliation. Everyone's wary of media and society. In reality, the ones who complain are only those who have turned rape into a business," goes another. An app that lets known people monitor someone’s location also poses the risk of abuse, coercion and surveillance by intimate partners or members of the family.

Unfortunately, there is no app for reforming a morass in law enforcement or dismantling patriarchy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/gender-it-rohini-lakshane-may-19-2016-womens-safety-there-is-an-app-for-that

Women on Covid lists get lewd calls and messages

praskrishna — 2021-05-24T06:35:20Z

Perverts are eating into precious time in the middle of a pandemic and adding to the overall anxiety.

Women are getting lewd calls and messages when they share their phone numbers to seek and offer pandemic-related help.

On April 15, Shasvathi Siva tweeted about how her number, shared on blood donation and social media groups, received obscene photos and video calls from strangers.

When she spoke about the harassment on Instagram, she ended up receiving more abuse from men.

With the second wave of the pandemic raging, many patients and families are turning to social media to search for medicines, oxygen, and even hospital beds.

Ambika Tandon, senior researcher, Centre for Internet and Society, says, “There are many stories of how prominent and outspoken women like journalists and activists have received hate speech and messages threatening violence.” What is shocking, she says, is not the harassment, but that it is not stopping even during a medical emergency.

Click to read the complete coverage in Deccan Herald on May 21, 2022.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-may-21-2021-krupa-joseph-women-on-covid-lists-get-lewd-calls-and-messages

Wikiwomen’s Meetup at St. Agnes College Explores Potentials and Plans of Women Editors in Mangalore, Karnataka

ting — 2016-09-01T14:39:53Z

Karnataka is known for its diverse linguistic cultures. Aside from Kannada, many are native speakers of Konkani, Tulu, and other languages. A small Wikiwomen's meetup was held on Saturday, August 27th at St. Agnes College, Mangalore, to invite female Wikipedians from the region. Many of them were new to the online encyclopedia but demonstrated strong interest in learning and contributing more Indic language content online.

A Wikiwomen’s meetup was held at St. Agnes College on August 27^th in the hope to strengthen the bonding and communication between female Wikipedians in Mangalore. Attendees of the meetup on Saturday included five Kannada Wikipedian, one Konkani Wikipedian, one from the recently gone live Tulu Wikipedia, and Ting-Yi Chang from the CIS A2K team. Two of the Kannada Wikipedians are staff and faculty members of the College’s library and Department of Kannada respectively. Both were brought into Wikipedia by edit-a-thons held on the college campus in the last few months

The meetup started off with a round of brief self-introduction and an inspiring introductory presentation by Dhanalakshimi K T, a St. Agnes commerce student who had successfully organized the last two women’s edit-a-thons on her campus.

“Wikipedia is a great tool for knowledge sharing. When we edit in our own languages, people from outside of the city who don’t speak English can learn things more easily online.... It is the respect and passion I have for my language."

The presentation also touched upon some feasible benefits that editors gains through participating in Wikipedia/media projects: improvement in writing and research skills, nurturing a critical thinking habit when reading texts and doing research, learnings from collaborative work experience, improvement in language and communication skills, etc. One of the participants later mentioned that with the hobby of editing Wikipedia, she began actively researching in her interested topics. Even in occasions when she had no time to actually update the content onto Wikipedia, the knowledge she gained throughout the research process has already enriched her and broadened her horizon of the subject.

The second half of the presentation consists of an introduction to the 5 pillars rules and some other advice of Wikipedia editing. Participants who were newcomers showed great interest and actively raised questions surrounding the use of different editing tools including the infobox templates, translation tools, useful markups, and personal sandboxes.

When being asked about the barriers they have faced so far in editing Wikipedia, most agreed that time issues do prevent them sometimes as their offline commitments (work, family, school) can take priority over it. However, most participants also concluded that “those who are truly interested will eventually find the time.” On the other hand, access to internet and facilities has not been reported as a barrier in their cases, but all agreed that it can be for many other women. Awareness was emphasized as a crucial factor when trying to bring in more women to Wikipedia. One of the student participants shared her experience,

“Some people may have never heard of Wikipedia before; some misunderstood its use and potential… when I talked about Kannada Wikipedia with my peers, first they thought it was some website for Kannada stories writing…. But when I explained to them what it is and how we can edit, they were all very excited and very much wanted to try."

In the latter discussion of the meetup, participants talked about the tentative event plans for the next few months. Two sessions were suggested to be held by November, 2016. One as a workshop for the newcomers and the other as an editing event for more experienced female Wikipedians. All participants, old and new, are really excited to strengthen the bonding between Wikiwomens in Mangalore. Some suggested there should be more casual meetups every few weeks to help them communicate more and plan upcoming community events, including an ongoing event that can be held in March, 2017 for the International Women’s Day and Wikiwomen’s History Month.

The meetup continued with more discussion on various language Wikipedias’ development. As an experienced Wikipedian and an actively outreaching community member, participant Harriet Vidyasagar explained the complexity in Konkani Wikipedia, which contains five scripts, and the importance of those scripts in Konkani language’s history and culture. All participants agreed that seeing their mother tongues’ scripts online and creating more content to make their culture and language visible are a great source of happiness and a motivation for them to continue editing. The session ended with exchange of contacts and group pictures.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiwomen2019s-meetup-at-st-agnes-college-explores-potentials-and-plans-of-women-editors-in-mangalore-karnataka

Why The New Government Policy Mandating Panic Buttons On Phones Isn’t Going To Protect Women

praskrishna — 2016-05-15T09:45:36Z

Recently, the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted about new rules mandating a panic button in every cell phone sold in the country from January 2017. To keep ladies safe, of course.

The story by Madhura Kadaba was published in the Ladies Finger on May 14, 2016. Rohini Lakshané was quoted.

According to a statement released by the Telecommunications Ministry, the panic button will be activated by pressing a designated button on a smartphone or by holding down both ‘5’ and ‘9’ keys on a basic phone. Pressing the panic button is expected to alert police and designated friends or relatives, similar to apps launched previously by police departments like Himmat.

It followed remarks from the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Ms Maneka Gandhi, in the Lok Sabha in December 2015. “Every cell phone will have an in-built panic button. Now, all new cell phones will be made with panic buttons. But in case of all old cell phones, you can go to the person who owns the company or the dealer and they will adjust it for you. If a woman is in trouble, she can just press the button on the cell phone and she will immediately get help.”

Two days later, reacting to concerns that the mandate could increase mobile phone costs, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Manufacturers… have given their support. My expectation is that they will render their support in social justice and women security.”

After a point, it almost becomes a farce — the government’s continuous search for grand, one-stop solutions to dealing with sexual violence. We had the vast coffers of the Nirbhaya fund, which went nowhere. It had tech solutions coming out of its 1000-crore ears. It included plans for setting up control rooms in 114 cities within 9 months back in 2014 and surveillance cameras in all public transport vehicles including autos! Who was going to be watching the feed of these cameras, if ever by some vast change in the face of humanity such a thing happened, you may wonder? Or as journalist Revati Laul wrote, “Given that police stations across the country are short staffed, given how many of them cannot even afford paper to file a first information report (FIR) or fuel for the police personnel’s motorbike, just how will the appearance of these control rooms change that? How will switchboards help if police stations in even big cities like Varanasi have too few vehicles to cater to the existing load of emergencies they have to deal with?” But hush, don’t interrupt when Daddy is talking.

Recently, we published an investigation into the one-stop centres promised by the Nirbhaya fund. These centres are supposed to provide services like assistance in lodging FIRs, medical assistance for medical examinations, and therapy. On paper, Delhi is supposed to have 6. Good luck locating them because they don’t exist. Most of the staff of the hospitals where the centers were to be located were clueless about the program.

But perhaps we should forget the tiresome past and move to the shiny button-filled future. We asked Rohini Lakshane, a technology expert and Program Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society what she thought of panic buttons. Recently she reviewed a bunch of personal safety apps geared toward women and was very unimpressed. About the government’s new plan, she said, “GPS accuracy in India can sometimes be patchy and not very accurate, and continuous location tracking drains the battery, something that could be problematic for people with phones that do not have good GPS hardware or a long battery life.” Lakshane added, “The app would also enable tracking by family members, which can increase the chance of intimate partner abuse and violence. There have been instances in which apps that provide real-time location or periodic updates of the location of a person to a contact have enabled abuse by intimate partners or by members of the family.” In short, you are unlikely to get the help you need in case of stranger danger and continue to face whatever oppression you maybe facing from your ‘loved ones’.

Which brings us to the biggest problem with panic buttons, the idea that what Indian women should live in fear of scary strangers outside the house.

The story by Madhura Kadaba was published in The Ladies Finger on May 14, 2016. Rohini Lakshane was quoted. The story by Madhura Kadaba was published in the Ladies Finger on May 14, 2016. Rohini Lakshane was quoted.

In fact, carefully conducted research shows over and over again that Indian women are most likely to face violence from their families, within their homes. The Mumbai programme RAHAT’s report shows that 91 percent of the accused in reported cases of rape were by known persons. Add on the fact if you have even a fleeting acquaintance with a man who attacks you the police are additionally reluctant to do anything.

Not that the police like to file complaints if you have been raped by a stranger. That way they are quite equal opportunity about ignoring complaints.

Perhaps we should have a panic button in our phones after all. A daily reminder that you should fear rape, in case for a moment you had decided to stop worrying. A daily reminder that if you do get raped you must remember to press a button that goes nowhere. A great metaphor for how we deal with victims of sexual violence in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/why-the-new-government-policy-mandating-panic-buttons-on-phones-isn2019t-going-to-protect-women

Use of mobile phones by vulnerable communities: A survey of sex workers and gay men in Karnataka

Megha Malnad, Parimala, Nagina, and Tasneem Mewa — 2020-07-14T06:32:18Z

This report has been authored by Megha Malnad, Parimala, Nagina, and Tasneem Mewa, and edited by Ambika Tandon, Gurshabad Grover and Rajesh Srinivas.

This report is part two of a two-part series studying the impact of data systems and digital technology on the lives of sexual minorities and sex workers. This project has been jointly conducted by CIS and Sangama.

Abstract

This report discusses social media and mobile phone usage by gay men, and women sex workers in Karnataka. Using primary data collected in 2018, we conclude that phones and social media can be used as a tool to protect oneself from certain kinds of violence, but also enables the perpetuation of other forms of violence. On one hand, mobile phones and social media provide new spaces and avenues to connect with personal and professional contacts; and can afford greater anonymity to vulnerable communities facing stigmatisation. On the other hand, phones and social media apps are another mechanism through which sex workers and gay men face violence and abuse.

The full report can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/use-of-mobile-phones-by-vulnerable-communities-a-survey-of-sex-workers-and-gay-men-in-karnataka

Unbox Festival 2019: CIS organizes two Workshops

saumyaa — 2019-02-26T01:53:39Z

Centre for Internet & Society organized two workshops at the Unbox Festival 2019, in Bangalore, on 15 and 17 February 2019.

'What is your Feminist Infrastructure Wishlist?

The first workshop 'What is your Feminist Infrastructure Wishlist?' was on Feminist Infrastructure Wishlists that was conducted by P.P. Sneha and Saumyaa Naidu on 15 February 2019. The objective of the workshop was to explore what it means to have infrastructure that is feminist. How do we build spaces, networks, and systems that are equal, inclusive, diverse, and accessible? We will also reflect on questions of network configurations, expertise, labour and visibility. For reading material click here.

AI for Good

With a backdrop of AI for social good, we explore existing applications of artificial intelligence, how we interact and engage with this technology on a daily basis. A discussion led by Saumyaa Naidu and Shweta Mohandas invited participants to examine current narratives around AI and imagine how these may transform with time. Questions around how we can build an AI for the future will become the starting point to trace its implications relating to social impact, policy, gender, design, and privacy. For reading materials see AI Now Report 2018, Machine Bias, and Why Do So Many Digital Assistants Have Feminine Names?

For info on Unbox Festival, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/unbox-2019-festival

The Gay Pride Charade

nishant — 2016-07-25T01:10:28Z

For most of the milllenials, news is formed by trends, what goes viral, and often open to speculation, projection, manipulation and deceit.

The article was published in Indian Express on July 3, 2016.

The world of social media can be a minefield of misinformation, and it does get difficult to verify facts and ensure the veracity of the information that comes to us on the winged notifications of our apps. This becomes starkly clear in times of crises. Hence, when the historic and heinous shootout at a gay night club in Orlando, USA, shook the world with horror and grief a couple of weeks ago, when the first tweets appeared on my timeline, my initial reaction was denial. Instead of believing those first responders, I was already searching for more credible news lines that could confirm — or hopefully deny — the massacre. It took only a few minutes, though, to realise that #StandWithOrlando was a reality that we will have to accommodate in the story of continued violence and abuse of sexual minorities around the world.

However, not all deception is bad. One of the most fantastic responses to the shoot-out was from a Quebec-based satirical website called JournalDemourreal.com that published a photoshopped image showing the Canadian PM Justin Trudeau kissing the leader of the Canadian opposition party Tom Mulcair, with a headline that the two, despite their differences, are “united against homophobia”. I know that I liked this fake story four times on different newsfeeds, half-believing, half-wishing that it was true, before I realised that it is a hoax. Morphed as it might be, the doctored image enabled people to talk about the tragedy as demanding a personal and a policy-level action, ranging from acceptance and freedom, to control of guns and protecting the rights of life and dignity for the sexual minorities who continue to remain persecuted in the world.

The image also allowed many queer people in different parts of the world — especially in the countries where homosexuality continues to be criminalised and severely punished — to participate not only in the global grief but also to demand that their governments take more responsibility towards its queer population.

While this photoshopped picture was making the rounds, another tweet showed up on my timeline. This time it was a tweet from our media-savvy PM, Narendra Modi, who claimed that he was “shocked at the shootout in Orlando.”And further added that his “thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families and the injured”. When I saw this tweet, my reaction again, was that this must be another joke. Because even as queer rights activists in the country struggle to fight for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, through their curative petitions in the Supreme Court in India, PM Modi’s government has continued its hateful diatribe against queer people in the country. His party has called homosexuality “anti-Indian” and “anti-family”. The party’s favourite, Baba Ramdev, continues his hate speech, offering to cure homosexuality through yoga.

Ever since the current government took power, documented hate crimes against queer people have more than doubled in the country. So when the PM decided to offer his condolences to those in Orlando, I figured that either it was a fake Twitter account masquerading as the PM or it was some kind of a hacker troll — maybe Anonymous, the online guerrilla activists, who recently took over ISIS- friendly websites and filled them up with information about male homosexuality as a response to the shoot-out — had taken control of the Twitter account. But it turned out that this piece of information was not photoshopped or hacked. It was actually true, and we were to believe in earnest that while the government doesn’t care about the millions of queer people being denied their rights to live and love in their country, it is heartbroken about what happened in the USA.

It does make you wonder about the world we live in, where a photoshopped image sounded more plausible than an undoctored tweet. It emphasises why Orlando cannot be treated as one isolated instance in another country, but that #WeAreOrlando. For right now, Orlando is also in India. It is a reminder that while we have been fortunate not to have such an instance of dramatic violence, there are millions of people in the country who are forced to live and die in deception for their sexual orientation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-nishant-shah-july-3-2016-gay-pride-charade

Technology-facilitated Gender-based Violence and Women’s Political Participation in India: A Position Paper

Yesha Tshering Paul, Amrita Sengupta — 2024-12-18T19:12:31Z

Read the full paper here.

Political participation of women is fundamental to democratic processes and promotes building of more equitable and just futures. Rapid adoption of technology has created avenues for women to access the virtual public sphere, where they may have traditionally struggled to access the physical public spaces, due to patriarchal norms and violence in the physical sphere. While technology has provided tools for political participation, information seeking, and mobilization, it has also created unsafe online spaces for women, thus often limiting their ability to actively engage online.

This essay examines the emotional and technological underpinnings of gender-based violence faced by women in politics. It further explores how gender-based violence is weaponised to diminish the political participation and influence of women in the public eye. Through real-life examples of gendered disinformation and sexist hate speech targeting women in politics in India, we identify affective patterns in the strategies deployed to adversely impact public opinion and democratic processes. We highlight the emotional triggers that play a role in exacerbating online gendered harms, particularly for women in public life. We also examine the critical role of technology and online platforms in this ecosystem – both in perpetuating and amplifying this violence as well as attempting to combat it.

We argue that it is critical to investigate and understand the affective structures in place, and the operation of patriarchal hegemony that continues to create unsafe access to public spheres, both online and offline, for women. We also advocate for understanding technology design and identifying tools that can actually aid in combating TFGBV. Further, we point to the continued need for greater accountability from platforms, to mainstream gender related harms and combat it through diversified approaches.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-and-women2019s-political-participation-in-india-a-position-paper

Stakeholder Consultation on Digital Assets for Women’s Economic Empowerment | UN Women + SEWA

Admin — 2020-04-07T13:14:40Z

On December 06, 2019, Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi participated in a "Stakeholder Consultation on Digital Assets for Women’s Economic Empowerment: Addressing Barriers and Enhancing Opportunities for Women in Informal Economy and in Agriculture".

Aayush and Ambika participated upon the invite of UN Women and Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), who were the organisers of the consultation. The consultation was from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm on 6th December, 2019 at the Claridges Hotel, New Delhi.

Former UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki Moon established the UN High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment (UNHLP-WEE) to make action oriented recommendations on how to improve economic outcomes for women in the context of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.The panel submitted its final report to the UN Secretary General in 2017, identifying seven drivers for women’s economic empowerment and laying out concrete actions for accelerating progress towards women’s full and equal economic participation.

In February 2019, SEWA Bharat and UN Women had organized a National consultation on “Taking Action Towards Transformative Change for Women in the Informal Sector in India” in India with civil society organizations, researchers, philanthropists and international organizations to prioritize action on the drivers for women’s economic empowerment in the context of India. Four drivers, amongst seven, were prioritized through the consultative process. Driver 4 on Building Assets – Digital, Financial and Property is one of the critical drivers for Women’s Economic Empowerment in India and has been prioritized for the first stakeholder consultation in the roadmap development process to contextualize the recommendation of HLP in the Indian context.

The primary objectives, then, of this consultation were as follows:

To provide a platform for sharing of experiences in research, programming and policy to ensure digital assets for women in the informal economy and in agriculture;
To identify proven and promising practices in this regard;
To develop an action agenda including identification of areas for research, programming and policy to reduce the gender digital divide.

*Detailed agenda*

Download the detailed agenda here.

*Participation*

At the consultation, Aayush contributed to the breakout group on DBT while Ambika contributed to the one on employment. The consultation led to rich discussions as on-ground experiences and learning from implementation programs were shared widely to devise a roadmap and policy recommendations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/stakeholder-consultation-on-digital-assets-for-women2019s-economic-empowerment-un-women-sewa

Social Entitlements for the Transgender Community

Deepa Krishnappa and Tasneem Mewa — 2020-07-14T06:27:44Z

This report has been authored by Deepa Krishnappa and Tasneem Mewa, and edited by Ambika Tandon, Gurshabad Grover and Rajesh Srinivas.

This report is part one of a two-part series studying the impact of data systems and digital technology on the lives of sexual minorities and sex workers. This project has been jointly conducted by CIS and Sangama.

Abstract

This report discusses access to social entitlements and sex reassignment surgery (SRS) among the transgender community in Kolar, Karnataka. We discuss the barriers to accessing gender-affirmative documentation, which in turn poses challenges to welfare entitlements and public healthcare. The data collection for the report was undertaken by union leaders affiliated with Sangama in the months of June to August 2018. The report seeks to demonstrate both the resilience of and discrimination against transgender peoples by individuals (family and friends) and access to health, legal, and social services. We conclude that the inability to exercise one’s rights is demonstrative of circuitous and exclusionary social systems.

The full report can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/social-entitlements-for-the-transgender-community

Roundtable on India’s Gig-work Economy

Noopur Raval, Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia, and Simiran Lalvani — 2020-05-19T06:36:34Z

Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This roundtable discussion marks the end of our series on 'India’s Gig-work Economy' published by the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). In this discussion, the researchers reflect on methods, challenges, inter-subjectivities and possible future directions for research on the topic. Listen to the audio track below or read the transcript for the full discussion.

Originally published by the Platypus blog of CASTAC on September 5, 2019.

Full transcript of the roundtable in English.

Excerpts from the roundtable

Part 1: On continuities between traditional and newer forms of work in cab-driving

Anushree (researcher, taxi-driving in Mumbai): “Something that came out during field work was the flow of workers from traditional services to app-based services which kind of happened in phases and all these platforms have played a different function in the history of this. While the radio taxis were more important in teaching workers to become professionals in the service economy the new platforms have given them a larger customer base and hired access to audience.”

Sarah (researcher, taxi-driving in Delhi): “Prior to Ola and Uber there were radio cabs, but they were not the same phenomenon obviously. They used to work in specific pockets better, such as the airport route.”

Part 2: Regulation of platform companies and platform-work

The State’s response to disruptive technologies in India has always accounted for worker groups as electoral constituents as well. This means that there are no neat divisions between older black and yellow cabs and the newer ride-hailing app-based cabs. To pacify the threatened black and yellow cab drivers, they were accorded a special category on hailing apps as well:

Anushree: So there were a lot of issues around the emergence of the app-based platforms and services and how they were disrupting the existing arrangements so in a bid to pacify the yellow and black cab drivers who are already operating in the city, these platform companies decided to go ahead and provide access to traditional taxi services as well. But also the related development that happened there is at the Maharashtra state government also provided another app to the black and yellow Cab drivers and as far as I found out during my fieldwork there hasn’t been any resolution on that front and most black and yellow cab drivers also use the State government made app but they also log into apps and every time I tried to book a black and yellow cab using Ola and Uber I could not get one.

Part 3: On motivations and perceptions of gig-work

Simiran (researcher, food-delivery work in Mumbai): “So, I felt that these non app-based workers had difficulty joining apps because they lack domicile proof to prove they live in the city. There is also a perception that one needs to be English speaking. I am not implying that app-based workers have no rural roots or are all English speaking or educated but this is the perception that was held by non-app workers that was interesting.”

Rajendra (researcher, food-delivery work in Delhi): “In case of the food-delivery workers in Delhi, they push them to deliver orders on time. This pressure makes them violate traffic rules, they ride on pavements, they break traffic signals. This also disrupts the social understanding of how to move in the city.”

Part 4: On studying the gig-economy in India: how did you recruit, why?

Noopur: Why not order and recruit because so many people seem to be taking this pathway to approach gig-economy workers?

Simiran: “…One thing is that I have never ordered food online so I wanted to keep it a bit blind that way but also the other thing is that I did not want my first interaction with the worker to be as a consumer or in a consumer-provider relationship. So, I was searching on Youtube, looking for city names and looking for search terms such as strikes or protests. Looking for videos about these things and their views on the companies…This was very interesting because there were also people from non-metro cities, from small towns doing this work who were also very eager to speak to me. They were expressive already and wanting to speak…”

Anushree: “Apart from them fleet owners and union members were very eager to talk to us. They saw the study as a way to put their voice out. I had to establish my identity as well as a researcher. I used Telegram and facebook groups extensively…I think I relied on Telegram the most. It was also surprising that such a diverse set of people were on that platform. I had never used Telegram before this project but the comfort levels of all the people using it was really surprising. Drivers in the union members group was sort of surprising to me, they were posting images from the road, they were posting audio notes, they were moderating conversations in the group. Telegram was my major source of responses and I also got to know what was happening on the ground.”

Sarah: “So, when you identify as a researcher and ask them these questions there is a certain expectation of allyship. So, I started asking them what they think is a good customer. That was a good entry point to assuring them that I was on their side. Some of them were still very cautious. We were talking about things like drunk women and they would be quick to tell me that not all women are bad. Or not all customers are bad. But discussing customers and their behavior was generally a good way to connect with them…”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/india-gig-work-economy-roundtable

Re-Wiring Women's Rights Debates in the Digital Age

praskrishna — 2015-02-12T17:07:32Z

IT for Change in partnership with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan and ANANDI organized this event on September 13 and 14, 2014. Rohini Lakshane participated as a speaker.

Website:
http://www.itforchange.net/ITfC_Course_Re-wiring_womens_rights/index.php/Agenda

Speakers List:
http://www.itforchange.net/ITfC_Course_Re-wiring_womens_rights/index.php/Session_speakers

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/re-wiring-women-rights-debates-in-digital-age

Raina Roy and Abhiraj Bag - Kolkata’s trans community has been locked out of healthcare and livelihood

Raina Roy and Abhiraj Bag — 2020-08-01T14:54:16Z

Over six months into the outbreak of Covid-19 in India, it has become clear that the pandemic does not affect everybody equally. It has amplified the sufferings of the already-marginalised trans community. Raina Roy spoke to 10 trans persons and trans rights activists in Kolkata over the course of the past few months to better understand the situation. The piece was transcribed by Abhiraj Bag and edited by Kaarika Das and Srravya C, researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society, India. This work is part of a project at CIS on gender, welfare and surveillance, supported by Privacy International, United Kingdom.

Originally published by Scroll on July 28, 2020.

Raina is a founder of Samabhabona (Baishamya Durikaran Samiti), a trans-led organisation in Kolkata working with trans rights since 2013. Abhiraj is a trans rights activist based in Kolkata.

Several members of our community have lost their livelihoods due to the lockdown and remain unemployed for over three months now. Those engaged in sex work and begging have no respite in sight for the foreseeable future. As a community, we are more likely to be unemployed as traditional employment opportunities are inaccessible to us. Our health concerns are also diverse, as we grapple with gender dysphoria alongside other psychosocial issues. Covid-19 has exacerbated these inequalities and effectively locked us out of livelihood as well as healthcare.

An alienating system

When it comes to accessing institutional healthcare, visiting hospitals can be a daunting ordeal for trans men and trans women, as we frequently encounter discrimination and stigmatisation from healthcare providers.

Even in emergency cases such as accidents, medical attention is delayed due to confusion whether the patient should be admitted to the male or female ward. Finding compassionate healthcare providers is difficult, especially in government hospitals. Most often, they are not sensitised to trans-health issues.

Such experiences have alienated us from the healthcare system and left several members of the trans community reluctant to seek medical help.

Access to general healthcare has further worsened with Covid-19, as many are unable to seek emergency medical assistance. With no sustainable source of income and deteriorating health condition, elderly trans persons are hit with a double whammy. Despite their failing health, there is presently no provision for routine health check-up which they can avail. The reluctance to consult a healthcare service provider has increased due to the added risk of infection.

SRS services are city-centric

Many in the community had scheduled their sex reassignment surgery or SRS and started taking the necessary hormonal medication. However, because of Covid-19, they have now had to postpone their surgery indefinitely. This uncertainty further aggravated distress together with issues of hormonal imbalance. Due to loss of income, many are resorting to alternative cheap hormonal medication and without proper medical supervision, its consequence could be harmful.

Those who have undergone SRS or are currently on hormone replacement therapy often experience side effects such as rise in blood pressure and blood sugar levels, urinary tract infection, and other immunity-compromising problems. To treat these side-effects, a patient may need to consult an endocrinologist, gynaecologist or urologist. However, such specialists are only available at district hospitals. At the sub-district level, we may be able to consult a gynaecologist at best. An endocrinologist or urologist would be available only if we travelled to the district hospitals or medical college hospitals.

A lockdown spanning over three months, restrictions on travel and closure of public transport have made the city-centric, SRS-related healthcare systems inaccessible to the transgender persons in smaller towns and villages. Pre-Covid-19, a few NGOs and community-based organisations provided sexual health services. However, they were unable to continue their services during the lockdown. This has adversely impacted the trans community’s access to sexual health services.

So far, two trans women have been tested positive for Covid-19 in Kolkata. Thanks to the intervention from activists and other allies, they were quarantined in the female ward when they tested positive. Both were asymptomatic and are presently self-isolating at home. Within the trans community, there is inadequate awareness about Covid-19 testing protocols and procedures. The saving grace has been the dedicated provisioning of ten beds at the MR Bangur Hospital, specifically reserved for transgender persons.

Community care

The most hard-hitting impact of Covid-19 is undoubtedly on the mental health of our community. Often faced with social stigma and physical abuse, we take refuge in the comfort of each other’s support. In the absence of familial ties, community support is vital for our well-being. However, Covid-19 and the consequent lockdown measures, has distanced us from our only source of support and solace – community interaction and meet-ups.

Although digitally mediated communication has somewhat helped in coping, it is not as effective or cathartic as an in-person conversation. This has increased the susceptibility of substance abuse in the community. Parallelly, there has been a considerable rise in domestic violence cases too. Even under normal circumstances, we are more likely to encounter intimate partner violence, but are skeptical to seek redressal as the law-enforcing institutions – both judiciary and the police – are biased against us.

At hospitals, the constant misgendering that we face at the hands of healthcare professionals can be traumatising. Aparna Banerjee, a trans-person in Kolkata, said that this trauma has only worsened during Covid-19, when frontline healthcare workers are not sensitised about trans health. To escape this trauma, some trans women have resorted to unscientific castration, leading to urinary tract infection and kidney-related problems. Gender dysphoria also puts the trans community at a higher risk of anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal tendencies.

The political milieu

Such strains on our mental and physical health come at a time when we are already distressed by the thought of being disenfranchised. The latest National Register of Citizens list in Assam had excluded many trans persons, as they couldn’t establish family ties, for being disowned by their families. And if they were included, their gender was incorrectly stated.

With the 2019 Transgender Person Act coming into force, a District Magistrate is given the authority to recognise a person as trans. This defies the right to self-identify, as upheld in the 2014 NALSA judgement. The current provision also necessitates providing proof of surgery and has no consideration for gender incongruence. The burden of providing proof of surgery is unnerving, especially for someone who has just transitioned.

As such, the cumulative impact of the 2019 Transgender Person Act and the Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register of Citizen mandate could lead to a significant part of the community being disenfranchised. In resisting this coercive pronouncement, we staged a protest in Kolkata earlier this year.

What can be done

The health and well-being of the trans community has suffered decades of institutional neglect and the Covid-19 pandemic has intensified this suffering. Remedial policy measures have been long due and cannot be delayed any further. Shelter homes have been one of our long-standing demands, to ensure safety and care for the transgender community, particularly the elderly. It is important that such shelter homes are democratic spaces, and not religious centres, that are welcoming of trans persons from different walks of life.

Secondly, healthcare systems, both public and private, need to be more trans-friendly – doctors, nurses and other staff in hospitals and healthcare centres need to be sensitised and trained to identify and understand the healthcare needs of transmen and transwomen. Recruitment of more transgender people as health workers would go a long way in treating transgender patients more humanely, with support and care.

Measures to contain the spread of the pandemic should include increased testing of transgender persons, and tracking the testing and infection rates among trans persons. Relief measures aimed at addressing the economic crisis need to acknowledge the loss of livelihood in the trans community and provide adequate financial support and compensation. Finally, it is important that governments, both at the centre- and state-level, pay heed to our demands and include representatives from the trans community while formulating policies that impact our lives in significant ways.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/raina-roy-abhiraj-bag-transgender-community-kolkata-covid19-healthcare-livelihood

Project on Gender, Health Communications and Online Activism with City University

ambika — 2019-12-02T09:38:21Z

CIS is a partner on the project 'Gender, Health Communications and Online Activism in the Digital Age'. The project is lead by Dr. Carolina Matos, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Media in the Department of Sociology at City University.

It is funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund. Ambika Tandon, Policy Officer at CIS, conducted fieldwork for the project in May and June 2019 as a research assistant.

The goal of the project is to advance research on how new communication technologies (ICTs) can be used to create awareness of gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights. It aims to assess how the use of technologies, by women's groups and feminist NGOs can empower women in developing countries to advance citizen and human rights with the intent to influence policy at the global and local level. More information on the preliminary findings of the project can be found in the downloadable presentation."

You may find Dr. Carolina Matos's presentation here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/project-on-gender-health-communications-and-online-activism-with-city-university