FY2014 Seminar for Gender Equality Officers and Women
Leaders in the Asia Pacific Region

Thailand Country Report
ICTs andWomen’s Empowerment
Mrs.Natthita Vijittrakarnkul

Office of Women’s Affairs and Family Development
Ministry of Social Development and Human Security

Country Overview
 514,000 square kilometres
 Population: 64,871,000*– Female: 33,329,000– Male: 31,542,000*Prediction of Thai population
as of the middle of the year2014

 GII: 0.36 (ranked no.66)
 HDI: 0.69 (Medium humandevelopment / rankedno.103)
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Country Overview (cont.)
Government
MonarchyPolitics: Temporary Junta
withReligions: Buddhism

Economy: Agriculture3

Gender Equality Policy
 Women’s Development Plan during the
11th National Economic and Social
Development Plan (2012-2016)•Principle aim :To promote the right attitudes, as well as
to adjust negative traditional attitudes
towards women in Thai society.
4Gender Equality Policy (Cont.)
Strategies:
To promote and establish of positive attitudes ongender equality.
To create justice and fairness between men andwomen.
To improve women’s health, sanitation, security andquality of Life.
 To develop women’s capability and opportunity.
 To strengthen and develop women’s mechanism.
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Current Situation of Gender Equality in the country
Population 6 years and over who use the internet by sex,
2009-2013

Source : Survey of the Internet users in household year 2013, National Statistical Office ,Ministry of Information and Communication Technology.

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Current Situation of Gender Equality in the country
Social media Users compare with activities by sex,2013

Source : Thailand Internet User Profile 2013, Electronic Transactions Development Agency (Public Organization) Ministry ofInformation and Communication Technology
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Current Situation of Gender Equality in the country
The number of ICT Workers classify
by job description, 2012
malefemale

Source : Survey of home workers, National Statistical Office8

Overview of ICTs
Women had higher computer and internet user,
computer literacy of population 6 years andover steadily increased from 26.6% in 2012 to29.1% in 2013.
Bangkok had the highest computer literacy rate,
followed by the North.
Internet literacy was higher among women inalmost every part of the Country.
Southern men had the lowest computer andinternet literacy rate.
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Overview of ICTs (cont.)
ICT was still very much the men’s world.
Working in ICT sector are classified as highskilled e.g. computing and computer associate
professionals, optical and electronic equipment
operators, and low-skilled, e.g. electrical andelectronic equipment mechanics and fitters.
Women accounted for only half of men in thehigh-skilled group.
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Case Analysis
 The report “Gender Development:Differences and Similarities” incooperation with The National
Statistical Office and the Officeof Women’s Affairs and Family
Development, on the support of theUnited Nations Development
Programme (UNDP Thailand),2008
11Case Analysis (cont.)
 Report of gender disaggregated data on the role anddevelopment of women and men in 7 aspects:
1. health
2. education
3. employment
4. income and poverty
5. family life and reproductive health
6. violence
7. leadership12Case Analysis (cont.)
 Gender- related Development Index

Plus : GDI Plus, consists of 6 component
and 21 indicators.
The 6 component are
health, education,employment, income,participation, andleadership, (2009).

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Best Practices
 Thailand’s gender information center(www.gender.go.th)

14Best Practices (cont.)• The Subcommittee of Gender Statistics underthe Committee of Thailand’ Statistics System
Administrative in Economic, Social and Natural
Resources and Environment.
• The gender statistics development plan under
the Thailand’ statistics master plan for 5 years.

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Best Practices (cont.)

Community ICT learning
centers under the supervisionof the Ministry of Information
and Communication
Technology .
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Best Practices (cont.) Promote the positive attitudes toward issue of genderequality to public and media vocational.
 Promote knowledge on gender roles, recognition ofhuman dignity, and the importance of genderequality for the creation of balance througheducation courses, programmes and the media.
 Thai Public Broadcasting Service (ThaiPBS) is theprivate sector of public media which focus on genderequality and women’s potentiality in mass media forvision “Public Media and Promotion of Gender
Equality”
17Major Obstacles to reduce gender gaps in access toICTs and to overcome gender-bias in the media
The government organization don’t emphasize theimportance and the advantage for provide sex
disaggregated data.
 The government and media associations don’t havemeasures to curb and control all kinds of violence against
womenin all types of media.
 Almost media don’t emphasize on gender responsive such as
women’s right and human dignity when disseminate theinformation about women to public.
 Almost media and computer network vocational lackknowledge of gender awareness to disseminate or report
the information.
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8. Conclusion and Policy Recommendations
 Promoting the Government and related organization to give
precedence to collect and provide sex disaggregated data.
 Identifying and promoting good practices and lesson learnedon the use of gender perspective and gender disaggregateddata in policy-making as well as developing targets andindicators to track the progress of women’s and girl’sempowerment.
 Capacity-building towards gender equality in media andsocial network.
 Developing research on ICTs and Women’s Empowerment for
the way to integrate gender responsive in all ICTs initiatives.
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