The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> BISHAKHA DATTA: We are just about to start the next session, which is the meeting of the Gender Dynamic Coalition, so can we request people from the previous workshop, yes. Can we request people in the room to come to the table? This is an interactive session. We would like to hear from you. It is not so much a presentation‑based session. Yes. Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning, everybody, I work with Point of View which works at the intersection of gender, sexuality and technology. This is the annual meeting of the Gender Dynamic Coalition. So before we proceed with our agenda, can I just ask people how many of you have been to a meeting of the Gender Dynamic Coalition ever? Let me then very quickly complain what the Dynamic Coalition is.
Basically at each IGF, there are about 12 Dynamic Coalitions which are basically like thematic groups. The reason they are called Dynamic Coalitions is because it's not essential for someone to be a permanent member of this coalition. So the people who are part of the coalition keep changing. It's a very dynamic, but people who are interested in that particular theme can come to the meetings or can participate on line. So we have a list actually for the gender, for the dynamic Coalition on Gender and internet governance and it would be gratefully if you all are it would be great if you would like to join the list we can pass a piece of paper and people who would like to join the list if you put your email down, we can add you to the list. That's how the Dynamic Coalition works throughout the year and the annual meeting is at the IGF every year.
So one of the first things we would like to do which is a tradition at the Gender Dynamic Coalition is part of our mandate of looking at gender in Internet Governance is making sure that there are enough genders at the table that shape, influence and define what Internet Governance is. So we want enough women at the tables. We want enough trans people. We want people of different gender identities really shaping the Internet Governance mandate.
And as part of that, there has been a tradition which was introduced by the Association for Progressive Communications or APC, which is a global network to do what is called Gender Report Cards so we basically look at how many women were participants at each year's IGF panelists as well as moderators to see whether the gender parity is being achieved or whether we still need to work on this. The first thing we will do is report back through the Gender Report Cards, and for that I will ask Smita who is my colleague at Point of View to share a presentation.
>> SMITA VANNIYAR: Good morning, I'm Smita Vanniyar. I will take you through the Gender Report Cards for IGF 2015 and the African IGF 2016 and the Pacific region IGF 2016. Firstly, the IGF 2015, now, this is the Gender Report Cards were recorded for 107 workshops and sessions at IGF 2015. Out of these 88 workshops we recorded the number of female participants at the workshops. According to this, the Gender Report Card which came out, 59 workshops had half of the participants as female.
Five had majority female participants, 22 had less than half female participants. And one had no participants at all. The Gender Report Card notes gender diversity of moderators. The top five are the workshops that had majority female participants, the five workshops. Next we go to look at gender diversity of moderators. This was recorded in 105 workshops. Out of 105 workshops, 75 had male moderators and only 41 had female moderators.
Among the panelists, there were 476 male panelists and 274 female panelists. So to carry on on the panelists so 80 workshops had more male than female. 14 had more female than male and 14 had equal number at IGF 2015. The Gender Report Card looks at relevance of gender as a theme at workshops. This was recorded in 79 workshops. In two of the workshops gender was seen as the main theme whereas in 13 it was seen as an important topic. In 20 it was mentioned, but people didn't think it was very important and in about 44 there was no mention of gender at all.
We will just show a quick comparison between IGF 2014 and 2015. There was a decrease in the number of female panelists but a slight increase in the number of moderators. We couldn't compare the participants because it was calculated differently in 2014. So this is a comparison between the two years.
>> So I think what's interesting what we are seeing as the trend because these measurements have been done since 2012 is I think we are seeing that the number of women who are either participating in the IGF or moderators or panelists is more or less increasing, right? Even though there may be slight variation. But the relevance of gender as a thing still needs work because as you can see on this chart in a majority of the sessions gender was not considered important or related to what was being discussed. And there were very few sessions where it was the main theme, then important or mentioned. So this is an area we have to work on.
>> SMITA VANNIYAR: African IGF. In this there were only 12 sessions recorded. Gender Report Cards for 12 sessions recorded. Out of these, half, 10 workshops had half of the participants as female. One had less than half as female and one had more than half of the participants were women in that session. Among the moderators, out of the 12 workshops which were recorded, 10 of them had male moderators and four had female moderators. Among the panelists, the report card of male panelists and 14 female panelists, looking at relevance of gender as a theme, among the 12 workshops which were recorded in two of them it was seen as important, two of them it was mentioned and eight of them it wasn't mentioned at all.
And if there were no workshops which had gender as the main theme. It was very interesting the African idea of Gender Report Card had this additional column, it said who dominated the conversation, dude or not dude. Unfortunately we didn't have enough data. So the ones that were reported said dudes dominated 100%. So this was the first time the Gender Report Cards were recorded at the after begin IGF. We go onto the Asia‑Pacific regional IGF in Taipei in July. This, in this the workshop coordinators had to report on diversity of participants, so when you had to fill in the report at the end of the figure they were told the number of participants as well. In 31 sessions it was recorded.
Out of this about 15 of them had less than half of the participants as female. 11 sessions had majority female participants, and about 5 of them had equal number of male and female participants. There were no sessions where there were no female participants whatsoever. The recording of moderators and panelists was a little different. This was done by APC members attending the sessions. It was reported in this format. There were nine female moderators and 33 female panelists.
Gender as a theme, again, here it was in two of the IGF, in three of the sessions it was the main theme. In two of them it was seen as important. In three of them it was not mentioned at all, and about eight sessions had no mention of gender whatsoever. I would like to thank Daphne and Debby who analyzed the IGF 2015 Gender Report Cards. That's my presentation. Thank you.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: One of the traditions at the Gender Dynamic Coalitions we like to discuss the findings of the Gender Report Cards whether people find this useful. So we would really welcome any comments from the floor and also I want to tell you how the methodology. So when you apply for a session or a workshop proposal at the IGF, or at any of the regional IGFs, you have to write a report after the workshop has been conducted. And at the IGF itself, gender reporting has been institutionalized in that report.
So there is a question which says how many of your participants were of different genders and, you know, how many moderators and participants. So that is the data that we are throwing back, and I think in the case of the Asia‑Pacific region IGF, this data was collected for the first time. So it was done up formally by can ‑‑ informal alley by members of APC present there and it was also done, it was added as a question in the workshop reporting as well, but perhaps because it's the first time, not many workshops reported back on this gender dine dimension.
And I think if you could talk a little bit about the European IGFs and what you have done this year.
>> VALENTINA PELIZZER: Valentina Pelizzer from One Word Platform, an organisation in Bosnia, Civil Society organisation. I can say nationally what we did, we, this year has been the second IGF, and we have tried to have as common ground that our aim to have a 50/50% policy. Of course, it's not very easy. This year we had more female participants than male or at least, you know, we had the third option, but let's say we had more people identify themself as female participating. The moderators, we had the three‑man panel. It's a one‑day event. We had only one event, on one panel we had female and male moderator co‑moderating. The panel on business was with equal participation, 50/50, so we achieved. We had another panel where it was like 40/60, 60% men and 40% women, and another one that was heavy male.
So this is a challenge that there is, and the results of the regional initiative, and I think that there is a challenge for all, but for us what is important is to have it as the very beginning so to say that this is what we want to have. So it's not an excuse. Organisation focal point has to really strive to make the best, and I think that is, the long‑term could work, and I think that the national IGF are very important because at the national level, you can reach out more easily to the constituencies, the different constituencies. If you want to see in the global level more women or more issues of diversity or diversity, we need to start really under the national level. The more local the better so we can grow. This is our experience.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: That's great. Thank you. And also to say if there are people here attending the national IGFs, and if you all would like to record gender or do something similar, please talk to us after the session and we can try and figure out how to do it, because I think all of us completely agree with Vally, if we can do this at the national levels, at the regional as well as at the global level, we can really monitor how gender diversity in terms of participation panelists and moderators across the IGF processes.
Any questions, comments? What did people think of the Gender Report Cards? Do you think it's useful to measure diversity this way? Just any comments that people have? Yes, please.
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: Thank you. Renata Ribeiro for the record. I would like to congratulate everyone on their great work. Also bringing a perspective from LAC IGF and Brazil IGF, we had Brazil IGF had for the first time in conferences, and there were several events around gender issues, and they referred the work of the DC and the IGF year‑long work.
Also during LAC IGF we had a session on Connecting the Next Billion, and the gender perspective was very important in this debate. The aspect of measuring connectivity of women and underrepresented groups such as LGBTQ issues as well did, was brought up in the national, in this regional IGF, and I would definitely invite you all to continue engaging also with LAC participants to increase these debates. We have very diverse gender issues groups, very active, and the experiences we had also changing with the DCs and with other national and regional IGF were very rich. And I do hope they continue and increase immensely in the next year. Thank you.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Thank you very much, Renata. One of the questions we wanted to focus on is all of the data is showing that while participation has increased as well as in moderation and panelists, the mention of gender still needs some work, so I think one of the strategies that we have been following is when we go to sessions sometimes, we insure that no matter, to give you an example, we just went to the Internet of Things session in workshop room 2.
And it's a little complicated trying to figure out how to ask a question related to gender in the Internet of Things given that, A, we are not that familiar with what the Internet of Things, like we don't know enough, right? So it was a little intimidating, but what we tend to do sometimes just to make sure that the gender component gets included is ask a related question. And then regardless of whether that is answered by the speakers or not, the effect of making them think about the gender aspect. So in the Internet of Things I think I asked a question about consent, and the reason I asked it is not so much that I knew it would be answered, but because I wanted people in that room who are setting the standards around the Internet of Things to at least start thinking about consent, which is very much related to gender and sexuality.
So this is, again, a strategy that we use which, yes ‑‑ yes, please.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Rachel Kaye and I'm with IFEK. Mine are more questions than comments and partly because I'm not that familiar with the process and the Coalition. When a workshop is submitted, what kind of criteria is involved in terms of including a gender dimension in the workshop? And is that evaluated after the fact in those report cards? So if there has been a commitment made by the workshop organizer to include that then looked at after the fact? Soar.
>> That's a really good question. I think at this point, no, it's a really good question and really good suggestions for ways to hit integration better. At this point what we have tried to do is insure consistent monitoring as self-evaluation as well as community evaluation through the report card mechanism, but the kind of most evaluation to the extent where you actually fulfill your commitments to integrate gender, I don't think that's quite happened yet, but what has happened though is that the MAG, for example, diversity on the basis of region, on the basis of stakeholder groups as well as on the basis of gender and age has been really prioritized in terms of assessment of workshop approvals. So that we definitely have seen an improvement.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: That's a great suggestion, Rachel, that we have noted as a point. I'm not sure how we can operationalize it, but we can discuss it because part of the way IGF works, and, Jac, correct me if I'm wrong, it's a soft persuasive touch rather than a hard evaluation sort of thing, but I think it's given us the idea that maybe we can look at some of the proposals as well as some of the reports and see how these correlate and then think of ways to take this forward.
>> AUDIENCE: I think ideally then that would feed into the next selection of workshops because then you would know that something being proposed may sound really good in principle, but then in practice, it actually didn't work. So then maybe there is recommendations that could come from an approval of the workshop, but actually when you do it, try this or try that.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Currently the way it works is gender is assumed to mean women by workshop participants when they report back, so Jac, again, this something, do you think we can change the language of that question or just put it in brackets saying women, trans, I mean, I think it would be interesting to even record literally like zero trans, if you know what I mean, just to sort of have that on the agenda even if we don't have enough so how can we, some of the internal processes of the IGF are hard to fathom, but how can we actually get this done?
>> JAC SM KEE: I mean, definitely a proposal that comes from the DC to say this should be included can be taken on to the MAG for discussion, and I think also at this moment it's quite opportune because we just had, I mean, there was just the IGF retreat that talked about, that had discussions about improvements in the work of the IGF. So this could be one of the things that we said, okay, integration of gender is quite critical. While there have been milestones in terms of report card and so on, but how can we make this more substantive integration in terms of content itself and discussion? So, yes, definitely welcoming very concrete recommendations is very, very helpful. So, please, more of that. And also, Renata is a MAG member but she can also contribute to the accommodation.
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: I want to also bring in information. The MAG has a work group on evaluation. So this group was just chartered and it's an idea of keeping up with year‑long work of improving workshop evaluation. I actually remember quite an interesting situation about gender issues workshops that when we were analyzing the workshops, for instance, we don't really have a way to see on the proposal form after the proposal is finalized, for example, panelists' genders. So I saw myself evaluating panels, and I didn't know whether I was evaluating Manels or not. So it was quite an interesting moment that it was sort of the aha moment.
Are we going to have only Manels in the IGF if we don't have a way to ascertain whether these workshops have gender balance or not. So I think there is an improvement which can be made on the system, on the process. Key word in that saying such. I think since we are also now together brain storming this urge us to think of ways to entering this proposal, making sure the proposal does approach gender issues, make that clear on the proposal in that it is a gender balance panel.
So the IGF as a corner stone diversity in its criteria of selection. So make sure you address it. Make sure you bring it on the proposals. And the Working Groups, they are MAG, but anyone can sign up for Working Groups, so the Working Groups on workshop evaluation, anyone can sign up. And that's going to help us improve the system. And also speaking on national and regional IGFs and the report card, for instance, there was a discussion on LAC IGF also about trying to adopt similar mechanisms such as the report card which is, which has already been adopted in the Asia‑Pacific IGF so try to think of that also in your local level.
So starting these proposals from the local level to the global IGF level is very important.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: In general do people think it's a good idea to try and have a recommendation that moves gender diversity beyond women, the women, men binary, to try and explicitly include different gender identities? In counting, like the thing is even if it's zero, according to ‑‑ I personally think it's fine because it just puts the issue on the agenda or if there is another way.
>> AUDIENCE: I was part of the Colombian table about Internet Governance and we are, I don't know, we attended three national Internet Governance Forums in the last two years on gender definitely is one of these issues that we try to improve. This year we have done a presentation about gender. The second year we don't have one in particular, and in the third one we have a panel about gender and inclusion.
And I want to say two things in that. Here is one, if something that I so in all of these Internet Governance ‑‑ saw in all of the Internet Governance sessions is that the women participation is in some cases very high, but when it's gender issues, when the issue is specifically gender, you look around and it's all women. There is something similar that happens today here. Yes. And there are no men talking about, there are no men talking about gender issues. There are few ones.
And it's very presence that they have here and it's okay, but we need more. And I think that that is part of the methodology is trying to find if their session about gender with all women or we can look for gender sessions with men and women and talking about that. That is one suggestion. The other one is in Colombia in our particular case it's very hard to ask people for their gender identity because a lot of people are not comfortable to say I am gay, lesbian or bisexual or whatever.
So it's very hard to say if we are going to introduce that in the statistics because a lot of people it's not comfortable saying that. So I suppose that that is part of this discussion and it's very hard to think that these people cannot say what is their gender identity.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: I think. Again, great suggestions. So I think we will then maybe based on this suggest that, you know, certain workshops where gender is the specific focus, we try and do the reverse count, right? We try and see how many men there are. And, yes. So let's note that as a definite action point. I think that's a really good idea, and I think on the self‑identification of our gender identities, let's not bring it up to sort of a high level. Let's see how we can freeze it in a way where we can just put, you know, some sort of additional thing saying please let us know if any other ‑‑ let's see how we can do it.
>> AUDIENCE: One of the things that we are implementing in sort of the Forums for participation or for other things is to add an option in gender, female, male, and other. So other could be a place where you don't have to specify, but it leaves it open.
>> VALENTINA PELIZZER: The raw statistic that the IGF is collecting, so when I registered I found two things I disliked. First, there is only female and male and it's compulsory, and second that you have to decide if you are a Mr., Mrs., or I don't really identify with any of this. And I don't understand why I should. So I think it should not be compulsory, but people could decide if those types of part or not but also to open up this generic identity. When we had our national IGF, we were thinking a lot about the other because we didn't, we were not sure ‑‑ we didn't want to, you know, you can go from an over extensive list or you can be so that, okay, we will put other and let people define, but this is a conversation, because then we enter other.
So if we talk about the level of statistic, I think at the end the statistic regardless of the Gender Score Card at the workshop, you have no really privacy when you come. I think the general statistic of the IGF could be more open and leaving people more space to define their own diversity.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. My name is Adrian Nalavin from Mexico. My first time at IGF and at this wonderful Dynamic Coalition reunion. I am one of the seven Commissioners at the federal (inaudible) institute, the Mexican regulator for telecom broadcasting and the competition authority. And we are seven, and only two women and five men at the Board of Commissioners. And I'm particularly interested in every country and at the international level in the decision‑making processes.
So, for instance, I attended yesterday the high level meeting that was at day zero here at the main Conference room, which was answering two very important questions regarding the Internet, and the panel which lasted three hours was a panel of 19 men and eight women in different very top positions and I was very impressed that we weren't even half of the ‑‑ and that's only men and women. Of course, very important what I just heard about being all genders included. So I know it's a multifactor issue and that is only a reflection of how decisions are made also in every country, and that's why most of the, I mean, the majority are men just like they are at the domestic level in the telecom industry.
It's overwhelmingly men in this sector. So there are so many different ways to address this and I'm not the expert, but one of the things I think that IGF could do, next IGF, when all of these workshops are being evaluated and finally approved at the proper instance this MAG, I think there should be absolutely transparency just like when you look at goods whether they are fair trade goods, whether they are environmentally friendly goods, I think Governments and other multi‑stakeholders should disclose who made a decision. I mean, gender‑wise, whether it was like all of the decisions we pass are made with five votes to men of women.
And I think this disclosure of who made the decisions regarding Internet Governance or regulation, whatever, gender inclusion programs, local content, who is making the decisions at the local level, and also at the international level, and how many women, trans, et cetera, were included in those decisions? And if we consistently disclose this information at every meeting, especially now that United Nations is having this campaign, he or she and other because I would have loved to hear at least 50% of the other gender. I mean, everyone is involved in gender issues, not only women. So I think that would be a good start to put pressure on how gender should be disclosed in the decision making process. Thank you.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Thank you very much for an excellent suggestion. I think what you are talking about is that there are many players in Internet Governance, which is absolutely true at the local, national, regional level, and that while we are measuring within the Internet Governance Forum processes, it might be worthwhile to think about how to step outside those.
I think that's a great suggestion. Since I live in India, what I will suggest is actually this goes outside the IGF process, right? This cannot be mandated by the IGF, but maybe we can do a pilot in our country. Maybe we can look at one particular, you know, so we will have to think of a methodology, but I think you have put a really important point on the table. Renata, you are the last comment in this because we then need to move onto the launch of the draft sexual harassment policy and discussion around that which I think will take a lot of time and then we have a little question and answer session that Jac will lead.
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: I just want to make an observation regarding Mexico. Congratulate your country, because on our host country team, we had a very interesting gender balance element. We had Martinez and Victor Lagunez always helping us plan the IGF. I think it's an appalling information 19 men on the high level panel. It's very worrying, but I agree with Bishakha this goes beyond the IGF. This is something we need to think in a multi‑stakeholder setting how do we dialogue with Government, how do we do pilot experiments.
And also I would like to call for the main session on trade policy and Internet. We had such a challenge trying to dialogue with Governments also to do a more balanced gender panel, and we even had some comments from a gender activist why there are no gender activists in trade, for instance. The UNCTAD has just released a course on trade and gender, and it is amazing how there are no, there is no connection between creative digital economy between the Internet we are going to have in the future. There is discussions about taxing our Internet and we don't have women involved in this discussion. The discussion is mainly closed doors Government, mostly all male panels.
So we definitely need to start thinking about how to amplify this debate, bring the gender perspective in and definitely try and find a way for us to dialogue there. Thank you for bringing the suggestion.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Before we close this session Smita has done a quick calculation of the gender balance in this room and the figures are.
>> SMITA VANNIYAR: There are seven men and the rest are female. There are 34 women as of now.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Marianne Franklin, Internet Rights Coalition and GIGANET. An encouraging story at the GIGANET meeting yesterday, it was remarked on Twitter and in the room that the opening panel was all women, and this is just emerging, very good papers, all women, everyone clapped. But the darker side is during a recent meeting with the current special rapporteur on privacy, there was an enormous issue about extraordinary imbalance in the gender perspective, but our champion was Zianhong Hu from UNESCO who made the point clear. It was not responded to well, but the point was made. Thank you.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Thank you for that. Let's move on to the next part of the agenda which is introducing the draft sexual harassment policy. So while Smita brings this up on the screen, just to give you background, at last year's Gender Dynamic Coalition meeting at the IGF, it was for the first time people in the session said that it would be good for the IGF to I have a sexual harassment policy. We discussed this in the room and there was like widespread consensus that something like this was needed before incidents occurred rather than sort of for the IGF to scramble after an incident had occurred.
With that in mind, we then drafted a policy which we will share for you. So Smita, if you can just go down to the ten so I can explain the process and the policy. Please, yes. The ten. Can you just go down a little so we can see it from the top? Thank you.
There is a light coming in here actually. Super, let me look at this. So what we did as a starting point is we decided to look at sexual harassment policies that were already in place, and we looked at ten such policies, five from technology‑related organisations, five from outside technology‑related organisations or Internet spaces. The five within the Internet space that we looked at is one is Geek Feminism which has a policy for community and a separate one for Conference.
We looked at Ubuntu, we looked at the International Engineering Task Force, we looked at APC, and they also looked at, we crowd sourced it and put out stuff on Twitter and Facebook asking people to send us sample sexual harassment policies they thought were good. So we got some from India, from California and we also got one from the Data Fest which is number 4, which is actually an arts festival run by the disability community in Liverpool. And we thought that that was an important perspective, and also because it's an event‑based space.
So that was the first thing we looked at. Then if we go down a little bit, we also looked at the codes of conduct at prominent open source community gatherings because often sexual harassment policies are related to the code of conduct so we wanted to look at the languages. That's what we did by way of background research. We also started an online mailing list where we asked people who were interested in this to comment on the first draft of the sexual harassment policy and we will go back to them because it has changed significantly since then.
Moving forward, the policy itself. Okay. First of all, why does IGF need all sexual harassment policy? One is we felt that simply, A, because sexual harassment occurs in multiple spaces online and offline and the IGF is not necessarily exempt from that. Two, because we really felt that all IGF stakeholders have the right to participate in a multi‑stakeholder process where they are treated with respect and dignity. So we need this kind of policy. And third, we felt that having a policy also sets clear expectations for behavior.
And having a policy in place can sometimes give a signal that this kind of behavior is not considered appropriate in this space. That said, we also want to note that the policy, that IGF already has a code of conduct which we have looked at and related it to. And we would like to actually suggest that the first thing that we recommend is that the IGF community in the policy we recommend actually that we think of sexual harassment as wholly unacceptable within figure processes.
And that we take a zero tolerance approach to its occurrence, which in practice means that corrective actions may be taken up to and including expulsions when policy violations occur not necessarily as a first step but perhaps as a last resort and we will go into detail. So if we move down, yes, we also said that the policy needs to cover harassment occurring both in physical spaces during meetings, conferences and events as well as digital work spaces including mailing lists and virtual meetings because both of these are very much part of the Forum's processes.
In terms of the definition, what we have put here, Smita, if you could just put ‑‑ thank you. We have put sort of a basic definition which covers the range of sexual harassment, which is up there talking about words, images, gestures, physical contact and physical digital or communication spaces, the key to sexual harassment is the word unwelcome. We have also talked about requests for a sexual favor or threats after I sexual nature and we have put down there that the impact of sexual harassment is often distress, intimidation, fear, humiliation or harm.
We also want to point out that sexual harassment can be subtle and indirect or blatant and overt. It can happen once. It can be a series of incidents. It can sometimes be unintended. It can sometimes be deliberate and it can sometimes be coercive. So all of this is there.
We also want to say that it can occur within the Conference space and timings and outside of it, but when you are involved in IGF related stuff, like you could go back to your hotel and, yes. So we want to include that. And finally to say that sexual harassment can occur between individuals of the same sex or gender. So that's sort of a brief thing and an annex we do have a sort of list of several sort of type breaking this down we didn't want to put this in the body because it would become a giant list. We will show it to you.
Moving forward, yes, we also wanted to specify that we do not want to confuse sexual harassment, A, with a friendly interaction between persons who are receptive to one another where certain behavior is not considered unwelcome. The key is also unwelcome to sexual harassment. And also that we don't want to confuse it with sort of careless communication. We can discuss all of these points.
And finally, the reporting aspect of sexual harassment, Smita, if you could go up again, thank you, is what we would like to say is that anyone experiencing sexual harassment at the IGF is encouraged to report it as soon as possible by contacting the antisexual harassment in the at whatever email address. So we are recommending in short that the IGF set up an anti‑sexual harassment committee. Provisionally we are thinking that a five member committee might be a good idea which is two people from the MAG, the Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group, two interested IGF community members and one member of Dynamic Coalition on Gender and Internet Governance. That's provisional.
Two questions that we have, we have said that all reports or complaints to the committee will be kept confidential and that anyone making a complaint will not be publicly identified. We have put the clause without his or her written consent for discussion, but we have two questions here. What do we think of anonymous complaints? We haven't put it. It's there as a comment in the document. And what do we think of third party complaints? I can see Marian, yes, so we want to discuss this which is why we haven't put it in, anonymous and third party.
We also want to say that we have put in a sentence saying that we would like the committee to take all complaints seriously and we would like committee members to not shrug off, minimize complaints or discourage stakeholders from reporting this. That's one of the real complexities with sexual harassment committees. Sometimes there is a stream of like let's settle it outside, don't make it a formal report, et cetera. Then we have basically said that we will leave it to the committee to take action it deems appropriate, which could range from a reminder of the policy, warnings and expulsion from all IGF spaces, but we want to discuss other possible ways to actually deal with sexual harassment.
And then finally, if we go down, we have also asked that the committee in keeping with the IGF's value of transparency document each report, discussions, action taken without publicly revealing the identity of those involved in the case. And then if you go down further, what you will see is that this is where we have the long list an Annex of different kinds, so it's a long list. It's annexed, just go down, Smita just to show it. Yes. Yes. So if we can now go back to the main policy itself and if we could have comments because this is draft, and we are not necessarily looking to finalize every aspect of this today, but we are looking for comments. Do people feel this is in the right zone? Is it too tough? Is it too soft? What are the things that are making you go, what about third party anonymous? What are the things that are making you uncomfortable? Is this in keeping with IGF's culture? Okay. So we have one hand, two hands, three hands, four. Okay. First four. There is an online question.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello, good morning, minimum name is Salvatore and I will do a question on line from Gene Gerr. Can you give us an example of a question to ask to ensure that gender is included in the transcription?
>> AUDIENCE: So basically, for example, if a remote participant is inputting then also ask store gender if these would like to, then you can also reflect that. (Jac SM Kee).
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: We need the nuance so I would encourage you to type so we need the nuance here.
>> Renata: I would like to give eye few comments on the sexual harassment policy. First, the composition of the committee, I would suggest instead of two members from the IGF community, one member for BPF gender and one member from the IGF community or we could have three members of the community and one member for, from the BPF gender to keep in line with the even vote and with the non‑even vote and to have also the BPF representative.
And about, about anonymous complaints and also complaints which can be attacked in the reputation. I do believe that everything has to be documented by this community as it was put on the policy, so anonymous complaint can be sent over. Other complaints which could be seen as, other things have to be documented, but this committee has a responsibility with the disclosure of this information so this information can only be disclosed in specific circumstances such as conserving due process in the following of the harassment complaint.
I also is, my biggest concern, I think, is that first and foremost, what would be punitive actions? We are a community. Do we exclude members from the community? Is there a possibility to exclude someone from a discussion on gender, for instance? I don't see it. So I think maybe thinking about educational measures and reflections is also interesting, then punitive measures because communities should work on self‑regulation as well and education and awareness.
So this would be something that, and, of course, that also involved articulating with Secretariat because let's imagine a scenario where we do have some sort of a culprit and we want to exclude this person. This is a process. This is a punitive process. We may not even have the width to go that far so we have to address this before we reach the scenario.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: I will quickly sum up to make sure I got it right. The first point about members, you said let's have either, did you mean keep five members or increase the number to six?
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: Keeping five instead of two interested from the community, one interested from the community and one from BPF gender. Or keep the two interested from the community and add one more, and add one from BPF gender. So we have seven in total of voters, because we need not an even number, right?
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: So that was the second thing, you talked about that you personally feel that it's acceptable for the committee to get anonymous complaints as long as everything is transparently documented properly, et cetera. The third is that in keeping with IGF it would be better to go with educational as well as self‑regulatory measures rather than things like expulsion and is expulsion even doable?
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: We have to remember we are in a U.N. setting so we do have constraints there of how to interact with our community members as well according to U.N. rules. So we should check that.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Okay. Yes, please.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is Gustavo Pivo, I'm from Brazil, and Brazil there is legislation that I think can be somewhat reused, a concept that can be reused here. In Brazil we do accept anonymous information for crimes, but they do not have the same value as an identified person making a testimony. An anonymous information can be used to initiate informal investigations, but not a process against someone, and I think that in the sense this can be applied here, an anonymous information can be seen as a somewhat less trustworthy bit of information but still valuable and it can trigger further discussions. And third party information can be useful in this sense. And what happens is, well, our community is very small as we all know, and everyone knows each other.
So it is a distinct possibility that while someone who has suffered harassment does not want to expose him for herself for the committee, maybe you know them or they know you, and that's your privacy. I understand that's a right, a Human Rights. And on the topic of the committee, I would like to suggest that, sexual harassment it's not male and female it's male, male, it's female on female and male and female. I'm gay myself, so that's something important to me. So I would like to please ask that we all keep diverse sexualities in the committee to we can see sexual harassment as the many kinds, many forms it can have.
And on punishments for someone who does commit sexual harassment, I understand that we could, for example, use, we can prohibit them from proposing workshops or alternatively, we can only allow them to propose workshops after they make a workshop in which they, let's say, in which they try to ‑‑ they can ask forgiveness or they can, yes, they could ‑‑ well, someone make may commit a sexual harassment and next year you can only propose workshops and on the other year, saying why you did it, why you happened and tell that you are sorry. So in a way it would serve as an example, and a lifetime ban on the IGF is ‑‑ I can understand that as a less measure for someone who has repeatedly made offenses, but while that's case‑by‑case, I guess. That's all.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Thank you very much Gustavo. One point I want to assure you that we already have in the draft document explicitly aligned saying that sexual harassment can occur between individuals of the same sex or the same gender identities and your other suggestions are great.
Thank you very much. Okay. (Speaking off microphone).
>> AUDIENCE: I still ‑‑ I'm Jurino from Thailand. I'm not sure, hesitant about the term that you used unwelcome action because this is good in some sense but it's also problematic in terms of it's very subjective. How can we define that and how do people considered being the predator can know that they actually do the sexual harassment already and especially in the community that we have, the cultural diversity sometimes people didn't know that the thing that they do is unwelcome for other people. So I don't know the curve of learning on that point that we can do.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: The reason we included the word unwelcome is because in many sexual harassment policies around the world that is there, but we will record your point to see how we can actually, you know, think about that
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. I think the proposal is a very sound one. I'm wondering if I could suggest an in between step precisely because we are dealing with awareness raising in a small community, and people sometimes are not aware of what they are saying, and if I may refer, I am on public record here, so if I may refer to Marianne Franklin, if I may refer to this meeting on privacy where a number of panelists were making comments they thought were humorous, but were actually problematic. And they didn't know this. There was a one‑on‑one conversation with one, and one has to work very gently here.
The key issue about sexual harassment when it goes public and someone wants to have somewhere to lay a complaint, what we also need is a space, a place, a group that people can come to say I'm experiencing this. There will be no further action necessarily taken. What we have is a proposal to put an implementation tool. I'm wondering could we develop a middle step. So there is a space people can go quietly to say I didn't feel comfortable with this comment, and then at a certain point the information is gathered and then a decision is made whether to proceed.
I feel this proposal might be just one big step too far, but to have it ready, to have it ready because it's very well formulated and to start talking about sexual harassment, its definition and say here we have a space, we have a group anyone can come to talk to and that group is perhaps develop into a bit more ‑‑ I'm concerned about cracking the whip too quickly. Because we might undo all of that work. So, yes. (Marian).
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: I think this is an excellent suggestion, which is we know from experience, right, all around the world that people do not like reporting first of all, that reporting often becomes a last step, and I think what you have said is actually really pointed out a sort of a gap in some of the sexual harassment policies that we have seen where this middle space does not exist. And I think this is actually a critical space, and that that is what we need to bring in to make it more of an arc rather than then, hey, you get a warning and then you are expelled which anyway is a little pointless.
So I think we would definitely like to build in that middle space if anybody has thoughts on like who that would be or where that space would be, please share them. The other thing I want to ask you Marian explicitly is do you have any thoughts on third party reporting or anonymous simply because you visibly reacts, yes?
>> MARIAN FRANKLIN: Well I heard my colleague from Brazil. I think it has its place, and precisely this middle space needs to be there so these things can be sorted out. Before you know it, because of the differences in understanding about what is or is not appropriate, yes, I think if we could create that space, we can deal with people coming and saying I know someone is feeling in this, yes. That was just my concern that it wouldn't become a sort of, well, it could be misused.
>> AUDIENCE: I was thinking about how we understand it is unwelcome. This morning I was on the cue of coffee and there was a gentleman, I would say middle age and I'm almost 50 and she had this nice way of holding up me and another girl. And I said you don't need to talk with me having your hand on my arms. So I think, yes, because I probably reached an age where I don't like anymore. So I think that there are many people that could experience this and I feel they are speaking, you know, they think that it is not to an educated would not be rude and say, and you accept that someone touch your body. (Valentina) so I think that those are things that are cross culture, and it's when your personal space got invaded.
And I think it's important. I would say in the middle ground would be nice if then we are having the policy, any workshop printing or anything where we enter has a small and before the workshop, we say this is a space that should be really welcoming, and people should feel all welcome. And if someone felt they are not respected or welcome, they can during the meeting or if they want to go to make, so that we make sure the beginning of any workshop or plenary that we make a disclose that everyone needs to feel comfortable because we have the joke in one EuroDIG ago, the European one about an analogy on rape.
And I protested in a plenary from one of the speakers because the guy didn't see. But then we protested, we make a big fuss in the plenary, and so the guy didn't understand, but at least apologized. So we got a word. I think it's important that we don't ever get to this point because then the space is disrupted so if we can find a way of just insure and make people more aware about the necessity of respecting each other, I think that this could help in making people thinking, but also setting the tone of the conversation.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: I think to respond to that it's a great suggestion. I think both you and Marian talk about something that in some spaces is often referred to almost like a friendly base policy which is how you keep the space comfortable for everybody to participate, and so I think we will pull in some language around that, et cetera, as a more like a principle kind of thing, and also try and figure out how that can be built into workshops so that the awareness can be created with a light touch.
I mean, I think it would be great to have a slide at the start of each workshop with just visually and with a few words or something says something of the sort, but, again, great suggestion. You had your hand up? Is there any remote participation?
>> AUDIENCE: Remote question from ‑‑ how do we promote the gender issues question when the related aspect is not obvious to some of us?
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Can you say that again?
>> AUDIENCE: How do we formulate the gender issues question when the related aspects are not obvious to some of us? This is the question from Gene Gerr. How do we formulate the gender issues questions when the related aspects are not obvious to some of us?
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: I think that's a great question, and I think this ties into what we saw in the Gender Report Cards where we saw that despite gender diversity increasing among participants, panelists and moderators, the mention of gender is still relatively low across sessions. It's fairly high in sessions that have gender as the main theme or the core area, but in a lot of sessions the majority of sessions it's not mentioned at all.
I think one of the things we can think about at the dynamic, as the Dynamic Coalition on Gender and Internet Governance and this was something we discussed last year, but we were too busy with the sexual harassment policy to work on it, but maybe for the year ahead is we could work with other Dynamic Coalitions and really work at what are the intersections between several issues and gender and figure out a way to make this accessible to people within the Internet Governance Forum processes. That could be a starting point. Again, if others have thoughts please pitch in. I see, you had a hand up then Chad then Maria. Okay.
>> AUDIENCE: So Marian very kindly and very nicely mentioned about third party, which are in retrospect I really do reconsider my thoughts and what I have personally seen actually in my own universe, for example, is that two people are friendly with each other, they have a long lasting friendship, and a third party might misinterpret their relationship. And in our environment which is multi-cultural, we have many standards, we have many cultures here. That can be specially, let's say, dangerous because in some countries have very friendly cultures.
We are very warm with each other while in others there is greater distance, more respect. So in that sense, while anonymous information are, let's say they have inherent danger of abuse, third party information might actually have a greater potential of abuse because they might be entirely misguided. And that's what I have to say. Thank you, Marian. Your opinion was very important for me.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Thanks very much. I think this has been a great interaction. I want to add one thing. I think, here is the thing, there is another issue with third party which is a named third party complaint doesn't necessarily take the wishes of the person who has experienced sexual harassment into account, right? So I also find like a named third party complaint very troubling. Anonymous complaint would, again, be I guess what we are then saying is we are comfortable with saying first person anonymous complaints, right, not because, of course, you can have third‑party anonymous complaints, but we don't want that, we want first person. That's what I'm getting fantastic. Jac then Maria, yes.
>> JAC SM KEE: The third party, I mean, I think if it was included, it would have to have the consent of the person who had been the victim of sexual harassment and whether or not you have it, and I think that obviously is hard to prove, but at least if it was stated in the policy that if we were going to leave third party, it would have to in principle have the consent of the person who had been violated to allow that third party to submit for them. Again, how you prove that and all of that, but I think if at least it's documented, then.
>> AUDIENCE: A suggestion around the previous discussion around how do we have more discussion around gender into sort of a self‑awareness or awareness raising. So maybe one of the ‑‑ I have a couple of suggestions that are related. One could be that, and it could be a gender Dynamic Coalition doing this is to have an orientation pre‑IGF talking about what gender is, a two‑hour one would be probably sufficient, you know, a day zero. That's one.
Secondly, there are actually orientations being held by men or by Secretariat I'm not sure who organizes that. In that situation there should be discussion around what the gender policy is of IGF and if we have something around sexual harassment policy that should be included in that orientation so it becomes much more high level. It's not only the Gender Dynamic Coalition, but it is actually the whole in IGF doing it.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Fantastic! Thank you very much. Marianne.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I was thinking about gender as the term. Would it be possibly the moment now to unpack that term so that we can have other indicators that lead to an understanding of gender? Because it's called the G word and people get, you know, red flag word. But there are other ways of noticing gender in a positive way developing without calling it necessarily gender. So just as we have listed the different understandings of sexual harassment, could we consider understanding of gender and then workshop organizers will understand what we are getting at it's not just how many men or women, it's other issues and offer ways in which they can incorporate gender sensitivity without asking them to list women. I think it's time we implemented and enabled that.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Renata.
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: I want to second on having orientation about the kind of code of conduct in the IGF. And I would also remind that there is a new commerce track this year, so there is also a place that you can sign up a mailing list to help people who are new to the IGF get around and those who are new to the IGF get more information. We are walking around with these badges. Some of us have volunteered to be mentors with the languages, I speak Portuguese. If anyone wants to ask any questions. And also referring to what Marian just said, there may be a situation where you just feel uncomfortable and you want to talk about someone in your own language. Hey, that person touched me in a way that I did not think was all right. Is this a cultural thing and such? So, again, we are a community so we should devise ways of supporting each other and trying to find ways to address uncomfortable situations and maybe start building places for awareness, education so people feel welcome here. The newcomers track has lunch time sessions, and we have one which is the perspective of society for newcomers, so, again, Civil Society can provide a great input on how to be more, how can IGF be more inclusive and be more, and be a safe environment.
I would invite you all to be involved. Thank you.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: And Rachel, last quick comment.
>> AUDIENCE: It was going to be continuing raising awareness. I think taking any opportunity at any moment that you have in session in the hall, in, when you are not in an environment where you are feeling threatened to raise awareness about what it means and how culturally it's different and me picking up on the idea of putting your hand up in a session and saying what you just said was inappropriate, and could be considered sexual harassment, you know, actually using those terms and going further with and maybe I don't know how many people are in the Coalition, but kind of a commitment of those at least in the Gender Dynamic Coalition when they are participating that they can use that voice.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Well, thank you everybody for really productive conversation which has moved this policy forward in a very concrete manner because we will now incorporate many of these points, and I think that will benefit the policy greatly. We will then submit it ‑‑ we have a meeting of the Dynamic Coalitions on Thursday where we will talk about the policy so that the other Dynamic Coalitions are aware of it. Once we have redrafted it and put in all of these points, we will look for endorsements from the other Dynamic Coalition. We will put it on the Gender Dynamic Coalition list as well as other lists related to gender which we know about which are part of online communities and broadly related to Internet Governance.
And then submit is to the multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group to make sure that this can actually be put into practice before the next IGF. That, I think, it our commitment. Okay. Moving to the final session on the agenda, the final item on the agenda. We are happy that Jac SM Kee who many of you know who is a member of the MAG as well as Director of the women's rights program at APC. Jac would like to have an interactive discussion on trends in gender and Internet Governance.
>> JAC SM KEE: Before I start on that, maybe also as a suggestion to take some of this work forward is maybe a working group can be formed. This is sort of the methodology and format for things to happen in IGF, which is the working group is formed and then to think through who are the composition of the people in the working group to figure out the final mechanisms of, you know, I have been creating that space to talk about more about this issue or how to concretize some of the suggestions.
So if you are interested to be part of this working group at least for the DC to then maybe signal your commitment to this. So it's not just a discussion every year. It's actual like kind of, you know, labor that needs to be put into this to think through the work so if you are commitment, please signal your commitment, that would be useful and what Renata and I can commit to is to bring the conversation to the MAG and think about how the MAG can interface more effectively. So we really only have ten minutes left and I wanted to have a very quick conversation just around what in your opinion are some of the trends in relation to how gender as an issue has been taken up in policy spaces around Internet and ICTs.
So, for example, during the WSIS period 2001, 2003 was looking at gender development and emphasis around promoting women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and we are seeing increased interest in looking at online gender‑based violence especially in the IGF spaces and other related spaces. So I wanted to get a quick since from what in terms of what you thought the friends were in how Internet policy, what do you sigh as things coming up and what do you see as critical issue that's have not yet been looked at? So what's missing in this conversation in relation to gender and ICT policy?
What I will do is just open it up and if you can quickly give your, you know, I know it's a bit of a flip from thinking about concrete work to thinking about sort of what issues are missing or what issues are critical and emerging. If you can give your quick response, I would appreciate it, and because we only have five minutes, so keep it, the interventions quite brief.
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: I have already spoke too much but green feature request to have debate on thinking about trends on gender issues debate, a debate on gender and Internet Governance linked to regions, so how can we make our discussion more inclusive? Do we have here all regions, do we have different stakeholder groups. I think if this is a great moment, Jac, you are giving us a gift to brain storm on what we want to have.
So my dream request for trend and gender debates would be really multi‑stakeholder geographical balance in gender issues, so gender in Internet Governance.
>> MARIAN FRANKLIN: Thanks Renata. You realize the link between increased, women's increasing participation and contribution in terms of age is younger women who are arriving, younger women who are contributing and have we been, start to look at those intersections between the demographics of age and the gender on the positive sense of gender.
>> AUDIENCE: Just like the situation in Thailand, the problem is the women's group are not participating, are not engaged in the Internet policy and sometimes they didn't understand the digital culture well, I don't know how can we engage them to put some in.
>> JAC SM KEE: What would change in the agenda in terms of topics? Because this also sort of helps in terms of thinking about what is missing in a debate.
>> AUDIENCE: Can I just echo the importance of including more women, especially women from the south. I feel like they are really missing in the debates.
>> AUDIENCE: I was just in another session on privacy and there was only one woman panelist when you talk about the privacy and gender aspect sometimes it's completely missing. And there are some crucial issues, like I come from India where most of the women are not able to access. So when they are not able to access, how will they be participating as well? So the access and the participation of a gender is more important to discuss about the Internet Governance and the Internet arena as well.
>> JAC SM KEE: You mean access to the Internet. Thank you very much.
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: I want to quickly answer your question of what would change in the conversation, so I think we would have many more concepts like autonomy that would come into the whole conversation. I think there would be a greater ‑‑ I think one of the problems in the current conversation in the Internet space is that there is the assumption of a neutral user, a user who doesn't have a gender, a class, a caste, a race, a sexuality, but then the default reference point of that supposedly neutral user is actually male. So if we are able to shift that conversation, right, and bring in like an embodied user, that would from our experience, we would be able to connect to issues like privacy, consent, surveillance to larger questions of bodily autonomy, bodily integrity, freedom, or even the whole conversation now where we are nuancing the whole freedom of expression issue which, again, sprung very much from the neutral user to now we are saying, well, freedom of ‑‑ whose freedom of expression? And are we entering a situation where online violence is taking away women's freedom of expression?
So already it's changing.
>> JAC SM KEE: Anyone else in terms of key issues that you feel is emerging in your context that you feel is not discussed enough at the IGF?
>> AUDIENCE: Can I quickly add cultural identities of women, especially for indigenous women in our country because the contents are mostly shaped by only certain groups of people. So there is a need to have that space for them as well.
>> RENATA RIBEIRO: The startup culture, there are more and more initiatives that want to teach girls or women to use ICT, but it's a startup culture where the individuals, you know, the profit, it's just one fit to all. And it's given, it's like a given. This is the trend. So what is missing? What I would like that we can discuss different way of accessing the Internet or the technology using it. There is not just one specific model that is sold out by Government and company is the only one.
>> JAC SM KEE: I think we are running out of time. If there are any last thoughts or comments, please raise them. And then I will sort of as a way forward.
>> MOSES KARANJA: My name is Moses Kranaja from the Uganda Network. I'm sorry I came in a little bit late. If I miss something, please excuse me, but one of the things I think can be done especially to increase more female voices and perspectives into the Internet policy debates and discussions is to build capacity to recruit them and to teach them much more about gender and Internet Governance issues and I know most of you are aware of the general Internet Governance action training that APC has done before. I think it is very critical because in Uganda where I come from we reviewed a number of ICT policies and laws and most of these policies are so gender insensitive, it doesn't take any consideration about gender issues.
They are predominantly male made by male lawyers and stuff like that, so the perspectives and views of the women and the issues that affect them are really lacking. So I think to increase more meaningful debate and outcomes of policies, then you need to get more women on board to be able to sit at the policy table with policy makers and discuss and share views on issues that affect them. Thank you.
>> JAC SM KEE: I will take a recommendation on day zero, recommendation on IGF and gender maybe. I want to quickly throw out a question if you feel that the gender DC could be a good space if we allocate a little bit of time at each DC time to discuss emerging issues related to gender and Internet Governance, does that make sense? Is that a good suggestion?
>> BISHAKHA DATTA: Thank you. Once again, it's been a great, great session. I am going to reach out to some of the people who have input into this session to see if you would like to join the working group on sexual harassment. And thank you.
(Concluded at 1147)