The High Commission for Planning (HCP) is commemorating International Women’s Day this year with the theme “For an inclusive digital world: innovation and technologies for gender equality,” by publishing new data on gender disparities in access to digital tools in Morocco.
Improving women’s access to new information and communication technologies (NICT) is the first point the memo evoked.
“Let’s recall that the global program of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 gives a central place to gender equality, a cross-cutting theme present at the level of the 17 SDGs of 2030’s agenda, and to which is devoted to the fifth goal dedicated specifically to gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women,” explained HCP.
One of the first nations to give their national reports on the implementation of the SDGs for the second time in five years at the UN High-Level Political Conference for Sustainable Development is Morocco.
It is also one of the few nations to have created regional SDGs reports.
The memo shared the results of a survey carried out by the HCP in three rounds between 2020 and 2022, on the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on households.
At times of lockdown, adults over the age of 15 spent an average of 1h40mn using smartphones, tablets, or computers for communication, socializing, and leisure activities on social networks.
Men used these devices an average of 1h57mn during these times, while women used them an average of 1h23mn.
Young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 consumed those tools for 3h05mn, those with higher education levels, around 3h01mn, and those enrolled in study or training, 3h30mn.
Prior to the lockdown, HCP notes that more than half of Moroccans (51.5%) devoted time to smartphones and such tools, with 53.3% being men and 49.4% women.
The report indicates that 1.5% of the population, 1.2% of men and 2% of women, started using digital tools for the first time during the lockdown.
The average duration of using these tools decreased to 48 minutes after the end of the health crisis, with males taking an average of 54 minutes and women an average of 42 minutes, 1 hour for city dwellers, and 26 minutes for rural residents.
As for people with higher education, it’s at 1 hour 35 minutes, compared to 17 minutes for those with no education.
Students consume digital gadgets for 1 hour 45 minutes, compared to 50 minutes for employed workers and 37 minutes for housewives; and 1 hour 31 minutes for young people aged 15 to 24, compared to 36 minutes for people aged 45 to 59.
Another issue evoked in the report is banking, as data showed, there is still a significant gender discrepancy among those who hold bank accounts: 71% of account holders aged 15 and over are men, compared to 29% of women.
The second major point raised by HCP is that “the use of new information and communication technologies contributes by 19% to violence, in all its forms, against women”.
“With this proliferation of NICTs and the expansion of social networks, digital violence, in all its forms, has emerged. With a prevalence of 14%, nearly 1.5 million women experience cyberviolence through emails, phone calls, text messages, etc,” noted the memo.
City dwellers (16%), teenagers between the ages of 15 and19, (29%), higher education students(25%), people with bachelor degrees (30%), and younger students (36%), are mostly at risk of becoming a victim of this sort of violence.
In 73% of instances, an anonymous individual commits this type of violence. The other 4% of cybercrime occurrences involve those who have a relationship with the victim, particularly their partner, a family member, a work colleague, a classmate, or a friend.
In total, this form of violence contributes 19% to all forms of violence against women. This amounts to 34% for girls aged 15 to 19 and 28% for women aged 20 to 24, concluded HCP.
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