The Embassy of Sweden in Pristina in cooporation with Global Girl Media at KosovaLive, marked the International Women´s Day by working together to highlight women profiles, experts and role models from Kosovo. With this initiative, we wanted to increase the number of women represented on Wikipedia and help to make the internet more gender-equal.
Wikipedia is the world’s largest online and user-generated encyclopedia. Its content influences and colours users’ knowledge about the world. But there is a great imbalance on the website, like in society at large. Ninety percent of the content is created by men, and there are four times more articles about men than there are about women. The figures vary regionally, but the picture is the same all over the world: the information about women is not only less extensive than that about men, it is also more negative and different in character.
To contribute to a more accurate picture, the Embassy of Sweden in Pristina has therefore taken the initiative for the #WikiGap event. On 8 March – International Women’s Day – we were joined by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Swedish embassies, which organised parallel events in more than 40 countries, from Sweden to Vietnam, Egypt and Colombia, together with local actors and partners.
“Sweden is the first country in the world with a feminist foreign policy. It emanates from a moral conviction based on justice and human rights, and also because gender equality is a basic condition for peace, security and sustainable development,” says Visare Gorani Gashi (spokesperson from the Embassy of Sweden in Pristina).
The feminist foreign policy is based on the ambition to strengthen women’s and girls’ rights, representation and resources. The #WikiGap initiative is part of this policy and aims to improve the representation of women on Wikipedia. During the day-long event, participants added content to Wikipedia by writing new articles and editing existing ones with information on women profiles, experts and role models in different fields.
In Pristina, this cooperation was conducted with the local organizations GlobalGirl Media at KosovaLive, University of Pristina, Alter Habitus, Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova-FLOSSK, Hallakate and Kosovo Stability Initiative and UN Women.
For more information please contact:
Name: Anduena Binxhiu
Contact details: anduena.binxhiu@gov.se
