The Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse calls for gender to be an integral part of the AI Action Summit

Joint statement from the governments of Australia, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Iceland, Mexico, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom, and Sweden.

In light of the upcoming Global AI Action Summit organised by France, we, the undersigned members countries of the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse emphasize the critical need to address human rights and gender equality issues in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).

With the rapid digital transformation of our societies, AI offers a new set of opportunities to advance the human rights of women, young women and girls in all their diversity and LGBTQI+ persons, and promote gender equality. AI can help all women and girls fully realize their human rights, including their right to education, their right to freedom of expression, of association and of peaceful assembly, to access information and to participate in cultural life and relevant decision-making processes. However, it also introduces a distinct set of challenges and risks, mirroring and amplifying existing gender biases and inequalities. While we recognise the critical role of AI as a driver of innovation and progress, we strongly affirm that these advances can only achieve their full potential if AI is designed, developed, evaluated, tested, deployed and used by applying a human rights-based approach, with gender equality at its core.

Currently, only 22% of AI professionals are women. This significant underrepresentation, particularly affecting global majority countries, increases the risk of AI systems perpetuating gender stereotypes and biases, and other forms of biases, discriminatory social norms and harmful outcomes. AI models, often trained on historically biased and discriminatory datasets, reproduce and amplify discrimination and stereotypes with lasting and tangible consequences, ranging from discriminatory recruitment practices to highly inadequate medical treatment for women. Moreover, the lack of “safety-by-design” measures in AI models further exacerbates risks of technology facilitated gender-based violence , with significant consequences for women and girls’ mental and physical health and safety, as well as economic and political participation. Available evidence suggests that the majority of deepfakes available online are pornographic and disproportionately target women. As such, the rapid weaponisation of AI may first impact a few, but then extends to many. When the human rights of women and girls and LGBTQI+ persons are at risk, all human rights are threatened. Whether in the daily use of AI models and systems or in multilateral fora and AI governance, the gendered impacts of AI have long been overlooked and led to existing online and offline threats disproportionately affecting women and girls in all their diversity.

Against this background, multilateral cooperation at the intersection of AI and gender has become essential. Since 2022, the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse has brought together countries to prioritise, understand, prevent, and address technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including in the era of AI, in multilateral fora. Complementary, the Laboratory for Women’s Rights Online was established to unite states, international organisations, private platforms, and civil society organisations in cooperating and developing transnational technical solutions to combat online and technology-facilitated gender-based violence. The Generation Equality’s Action Coalition for Technology and Innovation has also adopted a similar multi-stakeholder approach, playing a key role in addressing TFGBV on the multilateral scale.

In 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its first resolution on AI, Seizing the opportunities of safe secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems for sustainable development (A/RES/78/265) and its first Resolution on Eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls in the digital environment (A/C.3/79/L.17) driven by France and the Netherlands. Additionally, the adoption of the GA Resolution 78/213 Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the context of digital technologies (2023), the UN Agreed Conclusions from the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women on Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls (2023), as well as the Global Digital Compact (2024)–the first global text on the governance of digital technologies–and the UN Convention against Cybercrime (2024), the first international criminal justice treaty aimed at strengthening international cooperation for combating crimes committed by means of ICT systems, marked a significant step in addressing, protecting and defending human rights, including gender equality and the rights of women and girls in the digital environment.

Building on the recent progress and joint efforts to ensure effective international AI governance and accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs, we propose increased action to prioritise the rights of all women and girls in the digital environment at the upcoming AI Action Summit. First organised by the UK and later by South Korea, the next Summit will take place in France.

As part of the upcoming AI Action Summit, we, the undersigned countries of this declaration, call on states to recognise the gendered impact of AI on all women and girls and LGBTQI+ persons in all aspects of the digital world, recognising the continuity and interrelation between offline and online gender-based violence and the increase in technology-facilitated gender-based violence. We call on States to implement and uphold safeguards to protect the human rights of women and girls in all their diversity in the digital environment, including the online/offline continuum. We also urge the digital technology and AI sector to adopt safety-by-design principles throughout the lifecycle of AI systems, from design to development and deployment. We urge both States and the digital technology and AI sector to promote AI literacy for all, especially for all women and girls, in order to bridge the gender digital divide and to equip women, in particular those in vulnerable situations, with the knowledge to critically engage with AI by the means of promotion of equitable access and participation in the digital sphere and the empowerment of individuals to identify, mitigate, prevent and eradicate gender biases, stereotypes, discriminations, and violence.

We, the undersigned countries of this declaration, members of the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse, reaffirm our shared determination and commitment to building a digital future grounded in human rights, fully integrating women’s rights and gender considerations at the upcoming AI Action Summit in Paris, February 2025.