We’re excited to share that Derechos Digitales, a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing and protecting rights in the digital space, and a member of our Women’s Rights Online network, has today launched a Digital Gender Gap Audit scorecard for Mexico (available in Spanish and English).

The scorecard — which examines the digital gender gap in Mexico and the policies that are needed to advance women’s internet access and online rights in the country — represents the 14th scorecard released in our Digital Gender Gap Audit series.

The scorecard, together with an accompanying report which digs a bit deeper into the research and its conclusions, finds:

• While the national statistics office reports that 51.5% of women are online in Mexico, only 28% of women in rural areas have internet access, compared to around 34% of men, according to Derechos Digitales.
• Mexico has made good progress in expanding connectivity opportunities through the development of public WiFi hotspots, but a significant digital gap remains as the majority of these hotspots were deployed in urban and otherwise densely connected areas.
• Only 33% of primary schools and 48% of secondary schools in Mexico have at least one connected computer, and there is a broad gap between schools in rural and urban areas.
• More can be done to advance women in STEM — women represent only 10% of the tech industry in Mexico, and comprise 22% of engineers at the highest level of the National Researcher System.
• There are no institutional or legal mechanisms that allow women to effectively report online violence.

This scorecard — along with the 13 others that have been published to date — represents part of a wider effort to assess the digital gender gap around the world, and determine concrete steps that policymakers can take to advance progress toward closing the growing gender digital divide and enabling more women to access and use the internet safely and securely.

In Mexico, these steps include:

1. Evaluating Mexico Conectado (the country’s flagship programme for digital empowerment) from a gender perspective, and developing clear targets for furthering women’s empowerment online.
2. Working to end online gender-based violence by updating legal tools and developing trainings for law enforcement and others on how to respond to ICT-based harassment.
3. Improving public internet infrastructure, particularly in poor and rural areas, and empowering the development of community networks.
4. Prioritising digital education in all schools and communities, starting at the primary level.
5. Eliminating barriers to women pursuing STEM education and careers by, for example, establishing training programmes designed for all Mexican women.

Find our more about our Digital Gender Gap Audit and view all the scorecards published to date.

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