Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO,

教科文组织总干事奥德蕾·阿祖莱

on the occasion of International Women’s Day

国际妇女节致辞

8 March 2023

2023年3月8日

On International Women’s Day, we celebrate girls and women across the globe – and we remember that women’s rights must never be taken for granted.

值此国际妇女节，我们礼赞全球各地的女童和妇女，并且牢记绝不能将妇女权利视作自然而然的事情。

Indeed, the path towards a gender-equal world is an uncertain one: gradual progress, made over generations, can be wiped out in one fell swoop. The women and girls of Afghanistan know this well. In a few short months, they have lost their most fundamental rights – including the right to education.

确实，通往性别平等世界的道路并非一片坦途：数代人逐渐取得的进步可能会一下子被全盘抹杀。阿富汗妇女和女童对此深有体会。在短短几个月内，她们便失去了最基本的权利，包括受教育权。

The focus of this year’s Day is innovation and technology for gender equality, a subject at the core of UNESCO's crosscutting actions in education, the sciences, culture and communication.

今年的国际妇女节聚焦教科文组织在教育、科学、文化和传播领域横向行动的一个核心主题：以创新和技术促进性别平等。

Technology affects almost every aspect of our lives – how we work, learn, communicate, and participate in the public sphere. However, women are four times less likely to have advanced ICT skills, and represent less than 20 % of the tech force. In the world of AI, women do only 12% of research.

科技几乎影响到我们生活的方方面面，包括我们如何工作、学习、交流和参与公共领域活动。然而，女性掌握先进信通技术技能的可能性仅为男性的四分之一，且在技术人员中占比不足20%。在人工智能领域，女性仅参与了12%的研究工作。

This has serious knock-on effects. Because women and girls are less present in developing technology, gender stereotypes and bias are being perpetuated, and sometimes exacerbated, in the digital environment. Even worse, online gender-based violence and harassment silence women and deter them from participating in the public sphere – for example, in journalism, where nearly three-quarters of women have experienced online violence, and just under a third self-censor as a result, according to UNESCO research.

这引发了严重的连锁反应。由于妇女和女童较少参与技术开发，数字环境中的性别成见和偏见便长期存在，有时甚至出现加剧情况。更糟糕的是，基于性别的网络暴力和骚扰让女性不敢发声，且阻碍她们参与公共领域生活。例如，在新闻业，教科文组织的研究显示，近四分之三的女性曾遭受网络暴力，因此而进行自我审查的女性近乎三分之一。

We need to bridge the gender technological divide – and this starts with education. While there are more girls in school today than ever before, women and girls are still under-represented as learners and teachers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

我们需要弥合科技性别鸿沟，而这要从教育开始。虽然今天在校女童人数比以往任何时候都多，但妇女和女童在科学、技术、工程和数学领域学习者和教师中仍然占比不足。

For this reason, UNESCO is working to put women’s and girls’ talents towards making technology development a lever for gender equality. In Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, for example, thousands of girls have benefited from our digital skills education and mentorship programmes.

正因如此，教科文组织正努力推动妇女和女童才能的发挥，力争让技术发展成为促进性别平等的杠杆。例如，在肯尼亚、卢旺达、坦桑尼亚和乌干达，已有数以千计的女童从我们的数字技能教育和指导计划中受益。

Beyond education, UNESCO is committed to making the digital sphere a safer place for women. We are promoting diversity and inclusion in tech industries – for instance, through the Women 4 Ethical AI network, building on our Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, which supports the elimination of biases but also the financing of women-led tech. And we are working with our partners to develop and disseminate practical tools and legal guides, notably for women journalists and artists.

除教育外，教科文组织还致力于让数字领域成为对女性来说更安全的所在。例如，通过“妇女促进人工智能伦理”网络，并且在《人工智能伦理问题建议书》（该建议书既支持消除偏见，也支持为女性主导的科技提供资助）的基础上，我们正在促进科技行业的多样性和包容性。我们也正在与我们的合作伙伴一道，制定和传播尤其针对女记者和女艺术家的实用工具和法律指南。

At the policy level, we are making gender equality a clear focus of the guidelines we are developing for the regulation of digital platforms – building on the solid foundations laid at the Internet for Trust conference convened by UNESCO in February 2023.

在政策层面，在教科文组织于2023年2月召开的“可信互联网”会议奠定的坚实基础之上，我们将性别平等作为我们正在制定的数字平台监管指导原则的明确重点。

Today, on International Women’s Day, we need to ensure that women and girls benefit from the opportunities offered by the technological transformation – but also, and above all, we need to ensure that they can help shape it, on an equal footing.

今天，值此国际妇女节之际，我们需要确保妇女和女童从技术变革提供的机会中受益——但最重要的是，我们需要确保她们能够在平等的基础上助力塑造这场变革。