ICTs are crucial for learning and communication, but their safe use and accessibility are a concern in all societies. It is believed that women are less likely to be online in rural and urban poor communities which leaves them at the peripheries of the digital revolution. In communities where access is provided in public places, socio-cultural factors that prohibit
women from sharing common places with men or impose competing demands on their time prevent them from utilising such facilities. Thus, women tend to have less access than men to ICTs facilities that exist for common use in local communities. Such facilities could be information centres or cybercafés. Given gender-defined multiple roles and heavy domestic responsibilities, women’s leisure hours are limited. For some women, the challenge could be obtaining permission from their husbands. It is pertinent to identify concrete solutions for mainstreaming gender concerns in ICTs and Internet policy and closing the digital gender gap.
