Online safety a key part of Ottawa's new gender plan — and to world peace, says envoy
CTV
Authoritarian countries are leveraging social media to set back progress for women worldwide, a Canadian special envoy says, as Ottawa refreshes its cross-government gender policy.
Authoritarian countries are leveraging social media to set back progress for women worldwide, a Canadian special envoy says, as Ottawa refreshes its cross-government gender policy.
Canada's ambassador for women, peace and security, Jacqueline O'Neill, says these threats require supporters of gender equality around the world to work together.
Western countries must help buck a global trend of strongmen leaders seeking to prevent women from having meaningful roles in public life, she said in a recent interview.
"Authoritarian governments are very much cracking down on space for communities to organize, for the media to have free speech and for women's rights activists to pursue their work," said O'Neill, who advocates for women both abroad and at home.
She pointed to research such as that of Harvard University professor Erica Chenoweth, who has documented how resistance movements are more successful when they integrate women in leadership and frontline roles.
One way that governments are trying to stifle such opposition is by using social media to support, spread and even fund a narrative that women's rights are a foreign import meant to challenge traditional values, O'Neill said.
She calls it technology facilitated gender-based violence.
