Equality in the digital age: A call to action!

Equality in the digital age: A call to action!

The focus of the European Gender Equality Week 2024, which is currently taking place in the European Parliament and other EU institutions, is the urgent topic "Women in the digital world: security and empowerment". This initiative emphasizes the increasing problem of online nuisance and cyber power, which increasingly occurs in an increasingly digital society. SPÖ-EU MP Evelyn Regner, the initiator of the event, and SPÖ-EU MP Elisabeth Grossmann, emphasize the need for binding measures to promote gender equality at all political levels. Regner said: "The EU has committed to gender mainstreaming, but progress is too slow", as can be read on the website of the European Parliament.

urgent need for action

This year's gender Equality Week is also used to publish the equality index of the European Institute for Equal Opportunities (egg). In 2024, the EU average is 71 out of 100 points. With 71.7 points, Austria achieves a slightly better value, but slips to 11th place within the EU and thus faces major challenges. This particularly makes the discrepancies in income clear: in Austria the wage scissors are almost 17 percent, which is above the EU average of 13 percent. These inequalities are unacceptable because they severely impair the economic independence of women and their ability to make self -determined decisions.

The EU has been trying to defend women's rights for years and has passed pioneering laws on the end of unequal payment and to combat violence against women. Annually, progress will be summarized as part of the Equality Week gender and new measures to strengthen the rights of girls and women are identified. The focus of digital security is of central importance, since the digital world harbors many challenges in parallel to the offline world, such as the digital "gender skills gap"-the unequal accessibility and use of digital technologies for women. It is time for Europe to take courageous steps towards equality in order to make the digital world safe and accessible to all genders, and thus build a common responsibility for a more fair society, as well as The website of the European Parliament emphasized.