Child rights organizations are appealing to the government to consider scrapping the recent 12% tax that was imposed on data to enable online learning following the closure of schools due to COVID 19.
According to the executive director Tetre des hommes Netherlands Uganda, James Ayesiga because many young people cannot easily access the Internet due to the cost of data, they are now working with other organizations including cultural institutions to implement a five year "She Leads" project across the country that will target ordinary girls and young women to access digital spaces to be able to participate in decision making at various levels where decisions that affect them are made.
While speaking during a national dialogue organized to discuss meaningful utilization of digital platforms by girls and women, the Dutch ambassador to Uganda Karin Boven asked the government and other stakeholders to work together to close the gender digital gap, if Uganda is to fully partake of benefits that internet "She Leads" project across the country that will target ordinary girls and young women to access digital spaces and ICT can render to its social-economic development.
Boven said that increasing access to the internet and technology for girls and women is critical in promoting gender equality in post COVID recovery, where getting digital is the new normal.
She also said access to information will also among others enable young girls and women to make well-informed health and safe choices on matters related to their sexuality and sexual reproductive health, accesses to education, and opportunity for economic empowerment.
The five-year "She Leads" project targets to impact up to 500,000 young girls across the country, to be able to influence decision making right away from school level.
