This document was an input into the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) High-Level Intergovernmental Meeting on the Review of Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.
It aims to use the powerful lens of the 'information society' to define the emerging priorities for analysis and action towards gender justice. The paper offers a conceptual framework built upon the critical concerns expressed in the Section J of the Platform for Action, articulated around issues of media and access to technology. Beyond this first step, the authors flag two other issues, violence against women and access to knowledge, which are addressed by the Platform for Action but without an 'information society' perspective which means that their link to women's empowerment is highly weakened. In approaching those issues through an information society frameword, the document explores the new context of self-expression and social relationships vis-a-vis digital reality and the centrality of knowledge ownership and sharing paradigms to the new social and economic order.