Wide gender gaps in access to the internet as well as mobile phone ownership threaten to “leave women behind” as countries develop, says a report by the UN high-level panel, calling for digital inclusion, especially of poor women, to achieve one of the key Sustainable Development Goals — economic empowerment of women — by 2030.

“Worldwide, some 2.3 billion women do not have internet access and more than 1.7 billion do not own a mobile phone. Some 200 million fewer women than men have online access or mobile phones”, says the recent report “Leave No One Behind’.

Pointing out that globally women on average are 14 per cent less likely than men to own a mobile phone, the report said in South Asia, this gap was at 38 per cent, with only 43 per cent women owning smartphones.

Prevalent social norms that deem digital use as “inappropriate” for women, such as in India, was also a key factor impeding the use of internet by women, the report said.

“In Egypt and India, women were up to six times more likely than women in Uganda to report that internet was not appropriate for them or that their friends and family would disapprove of their using it.”

The report cited a survey of 10 developing countries, where about 13 per cent women and 18 per cent men reported experiencing harassment in phone or text messages, while 13 per cent women and 11 per cent men using the internet reported harassment from emails or social media.

While calling for public policy along with action by private sector and civil society to support digital inclusion, the report also stressed that countries must enforce “robust national data protection laws”, as well as ensure data privacy. Citing cost as another “large barrier” for digital inclusion, the panel called for making handsets and broadband services affordable.

“In 2013, the Broadband Commission found that only 29 per cent of national broadband strategies included gender-specific actions,” it noted, and suggested measures such as reducing taxes on mobile-dedicated or broadband-related services as well as introducing targeted subsidies. “In Ecuador, the abolition of mobile excise tax in 2008 increased penetration by 40 per cent,” it said, suggesting that government could also promote free or low-cost internet access in community centres, schools etc.