The 148th IPU Assembly will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from 23-27 March 2024. This is the first time in almost six years that the IPU’s biannual Assembly will be held in Geneva. Hundreds of parliamentarians from around the world are expected to attend the Assembly to address the theme Parliamentary diplomacy: Building bridges for peace and understanding.
With 56 countries experiencing armed conflict in 2023 – according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute – the IPU Assembly will provide a much-needed space for parliamentary dialogue and diplomacy at the global, regional and bilateral levels, as a complement to the United Nations and other multilateral forums.
The Assembly is expected to adopt resolutions on Addressing the social and humanitarian impact of autonomous weapon systems and artificial intelligence and Partnerships for climate action: Promoting access to affordable green energy, and ensuring innovation, responsibility and equity.
#IPU148
https://www.ipu.org
H e e e e e cooperation cooperation between ladies and gentl and CH and ch recording in progress e e e e e e e e e e e e e in good morning everyone please take your seat r can spe we can start please for l Kong marab m Madame vice president of the Bureau of women parliamentarians Mr Secretary General of the ipu dear colleagues dear friends distinguished guests ladies and G gentlemen let me um agree with our vice president with the remarks that she has just made uh in respect first of our own
Uh president of the uh Bureau of women parliamentarians uh honorable Cynthia Lopez and the good that she has been doing for women and advancing the causes of ipu in different countries that she has visited but also the campaign that she’s undergoing and we all wish her all
The best and we hope she will be able to join us in the future having won the city of Mexico as the senator so we wish you all the best okay I would also like to take this opportunity since I’m addressing you uh for the first time
I’ would like to take this opportunity first to recognize the efforts that you all took both men and women to make sure this time we would have a female president I’m the one speaking before you right now so thank you so much for [Applause] every thank you so much for all the
Efforts you had put in that race and now we have a female president so I appreciate all that that you have done but also let me take this opportunity to congratulate all the women who won elections in the course of last year and I believe we’ll all be working together
To make sure we advance uh women issues but also inclusivity of other groups as well uh that said I would also like to register the fact that some parliaments did well and some parliaments didn’t do so well so we will be working hard to encourage those who did well to do
Better but also those who didn’t do well uh to also keep an eye on those as ipu to make sure we advance the our strategy of inclusivity and we need to see women there we need to see women on the decision making table in our world facing multiple Wars
And crisis the gender perspective placed at the core of our interparliamentary deliberations by this commendable forum is simply vital for any effective and Sustainable Solutions I look forward to your input from a gender perspective into the timely and crucial theme of this 148th assembly on peace uh with so
Many ongoing conflicts and wars with such a dangerous and inhibited War narrative that we hear way too often nowadays with such an acceptable cost of war and conf on women and girls and on the most vulnerable your perspectives are more important than ever backlash against women’s rights and empowerment generations of girls and
Young women left out of Education gender based and sexual violence hunger diseases and so many civilian lives lost cannot be and can and continue being the cost of conflicts and Wars we need to break the cycle for the good of everyone as our ipu assembly focuses on Pathways to peace through parliamentary
Diplomacy we can count on this forum to remind all of us that sustainable peace can only be achieved through women’s empowerment and gender equality an essential pillar for achieving this is parity between men and women in decision making in all sectors starting in politics and in our parliaments the recently published ipu
Report on women in Parliament shows that Pro progress is still very low today only 26.9% of parliamentarians worldwide are women this represents an increase of 0 4 percentage points in one year we need to do much better than that and we need to do that faster gender electoral quarters and their bold
Enforcement Remain the way to go our parliamentary institutions must be gender sensitive and promote the influence and Leadership of their are women members social norms that hamper women’s Eco participation need to be addressed courageously and comprehensively indeed we cannot Advance without elimin eliminating gender based discrimination and violence that hold
Back women and girls all these measures must be backed up by substantial Financial Resources to ensure the effective implementation and to meet the needs of women and girls such in investment in gender equality will turn current economic losses into future gains for our societies to convince you of this I
Invite you and your respective delegations including all male members of parliament to take part in the parity debate on eliminating discrimination transforming economic losses into gains that will be held on Tuesday 26th March 2024 from 11:30 a.m. to 13 hours in the afternoon colleagues and Friends inclusive leadership drives stronger
Governance better outcomes and more peaceful and fair societies this benefits us all this is why our parliaments must also work to promote the inclusion and Leadership of women everywhere in economies climate change digital Technologies and the uh the security sector I am delighted that the debate you’ll be having this morning on the
Draft resolution on autonomous weapons uh systems and artificial intelligence will focus on measures urgently needed to promote gender parity in the military and technological sectors you will also be looking looking at what we can do as parliamentarians to promote measures to counter gender bias in artificial intelligence systems particularly in military
AI I look forward to your deliberations and I wish you an excellent session of this forum and a fruitful 148th assembly I thank you so much for your [Applause] attention shr and to thank you very much um Madam vice president of the Bureau of women parliamentarians ipu president I recognize you good
Morning uh distinguished uh women parliamentarians gathered here ladies and gentlemen in fact uh I don’t usually come to this for to speak I come to listen to you and enjoy your wisdom because I want to go back and be able to implement our common agenda of gender equality but today my colleagues have
Insisted that I should say a few words at this opening of your meeting and that is because they want me to share some positive development in our agenda for equality I therefore agree to do this uh and also because generally I don’t need to be convinced to speak when it comes
To gender equality it’s just part of my D DNA that we can work together to make sure that men and women are sitting at a table and taking decisions together and I’m very glad to salute I am very glad to salute the accession of a distinguished lady to the
Presidency of the ipu in the person of Dr Jia a as you can see we are walking the talk uh the ipu has at its home uh a lady president and a male Secretary General so the gender equality at the leadership of the organization thank thank you very much
As I said I wanted to announce some positive developments and uh first of all I want to say that for the first time we are implementing in an IP assembly a policy to uh prevent harassment sexual harassment in particular and you will remember that in Luanda you adopted this forward looking
Document so that your organization could be aligned with the practices of other similar organizations in the world so today we are pleased that we can actually begin implementing that policy because we want to make sure that our assemblies and other events are platforms where men and women can
Contribute freely with a spirit of uh uh respect and free from any harassment or violence of any sort so I think that we are making Headway when it comes to gender equality not only in terms of representation but actually in terms of the ability to contribute freely to the deliberations of the organization
Secondly I note that for the first time in the history of the organization we have an executive committee that has gender parity we have equal numbers of men and women in our executive committee which is the one of the governing bodies of the organization and this is and this is not something that
Happened by chance I think it is the result of Decades of hard efforts by all of us to make sure that the governing structures of the po are gender equality equal sorry we also have a very important uh mechanism within the ipu the gender partnership Group which as
You know is made up of four uh persons two women two men from the executive committee that monitor participation in the Assemblies of the ipu that body has been reconstituted two days ago and has not yet met it is going to meet on the 26th and that is one of
The reasons why I was asked to take the floor here to give you some statistics as to how women are fairing in participation in this assembly So based on the registrations that we have recorded uh up until the 22nd of March that is yesterday we have an overall proportion
Of close to 3 6% of participants who are women so the ipus today in this assembly has we have women participating to the tune of 36% this is a similar ratio when compared with the one in Luanda in October last year and I just want to remind you and I
Think Madame President you did say that we have to keep working at this I have to remind you that the record is 38% so it seems that we are slowing down which means that we have to redouble our efforts out of the 145 delegations that are present in this assembly there are
12 that are single MP delegations so of the other 133 delegations that have two or more members members there are a total of 12 12 delegations composed only of men not very good and three composed only of women I think as Madame President said we should do better we surely can do
Better to make sure that all delegations all multi-member delegations are inclusive of men and women so it is something that I want to point out to you here also I want to salute the contribution of women parliamentarians in the exercise that has been launched to overhaul the
Statutes and rules of the ipu in order to bring us in line with the practices of the 21st century we have received many submissions including from the Bureau of uh women parliamentarians and a working group is set to meet at this assembly to review all submissions and subsequently present proposals to the
Entire membership for possible adoption in October uh 20 uh 24 that working group of course includes representative from the for Forum of women parliamentarians and from The Forum of young parliamentarians so your voice will continue to uh be heard so uh as I conclude my comments now I want to
Say that over the decades we have all been very steadfast in promoting gender equality when it comes to representation in particular and we have said that we will not stop until we have achieved gender parity we have doing we’ve been doing this work not only by ourselves
But we have been counting on support from many other institutions out there that give us some support and I can I would like to mention the sedor committee the committee on the uh elimination of all forms of discrimination against women we have the international gender champions of which
I am uh the chair of the global board we’ve been working very hard to promote uh gender equality we have generation equality we have un women all these Partners working together with the ipu in order to make sure that we can achieve parity across the board so let’s
Not stop the progress that has been made let’s not slow down let’s not be complacent we just have to be doged in our efforts to promote what we think is Justice and that Justice is that men and women in equal numbers should be sitting at the table to make decisions together
Thank you very much sh For Oob Shrr siani chap H Madame President dear colleagues it’s is a great pleasure to brief you on the work that the buau of women parliamentarian Carri out last October in Randa and earlier this morning here in genua for an essential part the buau prepar this 37 session of the Forum is
Agreed that the Forum will debate the draft resolution on addressing the social and humanitarian impact on autonomous weapon system and artificial intelligence from a gender perspective with Miss nasib AUP from Egypt as chairperson of the debate and Miss Reno from austalia as laor I hope that you will welcome this
Proposal the buau selected the topic of the panel discussion to take place this afternoon on women peace Builder advancing sustainable peace with this theme we wanted to highlight the important of women’s participation and Leadership for sustainable peace building we want to recognize and play tribute to the women fighting for peace
And for the elevation of suffering of the victim of war and conflict all over the world and we want to back up their efforts and initiatives I am very pleased to announce to you that our special guest in this afternoon panel discussion we be the special representative of the UN Secretary
General on sexual violence in Conflict Miss pamila pattern I invite you all to take part in this discussion and look forward to our deliberation on such an important and timely topic another important area we want to chck light on is the absolute necessity to continue removing any legal and cultural barrier
To women economics participation and empowerment there are some worrying sides of Reform fatigues but we cannot let this happen the cost of women’s disempowerment is way too high for our economies with six years to go to reach the cons sustainable development agenda working harder than ever to establish
Equality in all fields and ensure women’s full participation in the economy is key let discuss together and with our male colleagues how to do so in the parity debate on eliminating discrimination TR transforming economic loss into gains to take place during this assembly on Tuesday 26th March from
1130 to a.m. to 1 p.m. come along in LGE numbers with the male colleagues in your delegation so that together we can invest in women to improve our economics dear colleagues finally I would like to remind you that the ipu is currently conducting its third Regional study on
Sexism and violence against women in Parliament this time in the Asia Pacific region the study is conduct jointly with the asan interparliamentary Assembly of IPA and Commonwealth parliamentary Association of CA as representative of the buau of this region I very proud that this study is being conducted and I
Urge all the women MPS and women parliamentary staff from E of the 37 parament in the Asia Pacific region to participate in this important study interviews are strictly confidential and can take SP online or in person including during this assembly so please joy and help making all Parliament
Better place for all women I thank you for your attention and participation and look forward to our debat today which I’m sure will be extremely interesting thank you again Say for For Shan Mala uh dear um members of parliament dear uh colleagues and distinguished guests I’m very pleased to introduce to you uh the recently published um uh report of the ipu on uh women in Parliament you may remember I hope that this report is published every year to analyze uh the
Uh results of elections held uh uh when it comes to uh women’s participation so uh you see on the screen uh the uh title and the first page of this report and you will have many copies available for all of you uh to have um let’s see uh What uh uh uh
Happened in 2023 um in women in in in Parliament uh uh have uh of course made some gains uh today the proportion of uh women in Parliament stands at 26.9 uh% this is up from 26.5% uh the precedent year it means that there has been a small progress of
0.4 percentage point six countries have uh uh parity in uh uh their lower house of parliament uh some of them have more uh uh women than men today and uh um this includes of course Rwanda that maintained its position as uh uh the uh Parliament with a lower
Chamber that has the biggest proportion of uh women also we’ve seen some uh good progress in subsaharan African countries after the elections held in 2023 with a jump by 3.9 uh percentage uh point now uh on the other side of the coin um uh there have been of course
Losses that are very uh regretful uh the rate of progress that I told you about of 0.4 percentage uh points uh is actually the same one uh that uh was uh uh uh that we found out uh uh in 2022 this means that the progress in women’s participation in Parliament has
Stagnated um and even more worrying is the fact that in their years before 2022 the rate of progress was 0.6 percentage point so in 2022 and 2023 the annual rate of progress was lower uh than in previous years and this is pretty uh worrying um also what we’ve seen as very worrying
Uh uh in 2023 is uh several women prominent women in politics quitting their positions and I’m going to tell you a bit more uh later in this presentation about that now in terms of regional Trends and you will find in the report uh a section
For each region of the world um this if we look in regions we can see that in the Americas uh uh there is the highest share of women MPS uh across all regions so if there was a region that is Champion today it is uh the Americas congratulations definitely with uh
35.1% of uh women in Parliament in the Americas I remind you that the global average is 26.9 so um definitely this is good progress um another good Improvement uh is in subsaharan Africa uh uh which has the highest Improvement among all regions in 2023 with a jump by 3 .9 uh percentage
Point another Applause I think thank you very much and we really hope to see uh more advancements I draw your attention to the Pacific and the uh Middle East and North Africa where progress has not been uh happening so we very much hope that in the upcoming elections this will uh
Change if we uh look inside parliament’s uh uh now in terms of leadership uh by women um there are in uh uh today 23.8% of speakers of Parliament that are uh women and I’m very pleased to recognize many of them here with us today thank you very much for being here
Um uh uh the the different speakers present Madame speaker from Zambia Madame speaker from Indonesia Madame uh chairperson uh from usbekistan and I’m sure I’m missing uh some Madame arimon from Uruguay and many others thank you very much you are uh inspiring uh uh leadership uh uh by uh by women uh
Outside parliaments and inside parliaments so this is a progress uh uh we have 1.1 percentage Point uh more uh uh women in uh uh leadership positions than in 2022 too um in some countries the Bahamas Belgium Biz Germany and Mexico there are a woman speaker in each
Chamber uh so that’s great um uh We’ve also included data in this report on women’s chairpersons of parliamentary committees uh and uh worldwide 27.2% of all committees uh uh parliamentary committees are chaired by women it’s less than 30% so there’s much more to be done in addition of course
There are many more uh gender equality committees Chair by women than there are uh defense committees or Finance committees chaired by women as you can see the proportions as are pretty uh low and this of course needs to to change um in 2023 women speakers have been elected
For the very first time ever in Cambodia and in COD divir now let’s turn yeah it’s great and congratulations to these two countries for having a woman speaker for the first time uh in terms of Lessons Learned uh of course our uh report this year uh proves again that kotas gender
Electoral kotas succeed in having more women uh we have a a data point on that uh as we know that in elections held in 2023 countries that applied a quota elected 28.8% of women when countries that did not have a quota in place elected 23.2% so you can see this gap which
Shows us that electoral quotas are important and they work but to work quotas must be clear welld designed and supported by strong enforcement mechanisms and measures uh to be uh really effective or else it doesn’t work uh We’ve noticed as well that uh uh proportional representation and mixed
Systems uh of election uh enable better representation of women compared to uh first pass the post uh uh system now of course in 20233 we’ve also uh uh kept our uh eye on acts of violence against women uh in particular during elections and uh you will see in the report that female
Candidates were particularly targeted with uh gender-based violence and disinformation in several parliamentary elections including in Liberia in New Zealand in Poland and so in Thailand um and many uh women MPS uh spoke up uh uh about their experience of harassment uh including in Australia in France or in
The United Kingdom as well um on the uh brighter front of things when it comes to uh violence against women in politics uh um some parliaments are acknowledging the problem and uh stepping up uh the their action against it including some uh measures taken in Australia in Benin
Uh in Iceland and also in Ireland in 2024 and we very much hope that each and every Parliament will take very strong measures to stop any form of violence against women in Parliament and we are here to support you in this endeavor my last point is going to look
At this phenomenon uh that was very strong in 2023 of women quitting uh uh politics uh it’s very um of course worrying we here at the ipu you all promote women’s participation if it is to get women into positions where then they are harassed they suffer burnout uh
And uh um uh suffer um Acts of uh uh violence against women uh then uh maybe this is not the objective uh that we are all uh pursuing um knowing this the Bureau of women parliamentarians uh has uh invited The Forum of women parliamentarians at its last session in Luanda to have a
Discussion specifically on uh uh women quitting Politics the title of the discussion was women in politics to stay or not to stay and this debate thank you all has provided guidance on what to do what are the solutions to keep women in uh politics um uh one of such
Recommendations was uh the importance of uh having peer-to-peer support to build resilience to pass on resilience the need to build more solidarity among women across py lines and border and part lines and borders this is including through women caucuses inside parliaments for example and other recommendations included uh ensuring
Better representation of women uh uh and adopting codes of conducts in parliaments to prevent any uh forms of uh harassment and to adapt parliaments better to both men and women uh working in Parliament but also having their other responsibilities such as family responsibilities domestic responsibilities and Care responsibilities for the elders and for
Children on this note I hope this was an interesting presentation for all of you and I invite you to discover the report if you haven’t done that so thank you very [Applause] much sh Ver New York York s uh Disc C Col leadership Le C Uh [Applause] for M e inter C Lopez cast for for for ins Say November For AF for For for Shukran For for Z Linda Rons Australia NF a Christo l la For Comm Te Al For Ma Al AR Prov SE M Leg for Mar Christ Intelligent trained constrained biased artificial intelligence is the result of human and machine interaction humans are not neutral machines are not neutral thus AI is not neutral AI depends on the human capacity to generate algorithms introduce data evaluate systems and other actions that can reinforce gender norms and bias the limitations of modeling particular
People as universal can be seen in applications of AI as diverse as voice recognition image detection and machine translation all of these applications currently recognize men at higher rates than women but gender bias does not refer only to bias against women the existing Norms of War mean that
Algorithmic models might be less likely to identify civilian men as non-combatants raising concerns about bias against men as well un’s new report does military AI have gender uncovers the impact that gender Norms have on the development and deployment of AI for military purposes the report addresses gender in data collection algorithms and computer
Processing it also proposes a gender-based approach to human machine interactions by adopting gender mainstreaming policies for military AI strategies developing specific measures to assess how military AI systems represent and respond to gender and by including diverse experts in discussions on Military AI systems such as Scholars of gender race and
Ability learn more and down load our report here automated intelligent trained constrained biased artificial intelligence is the result of human and machine interaction humans are not neutral machines are not neutral thus AI is not neutral AI depends on the human capacity to generate algorithms introduce data evaluate systems and other actions that
Can reinforce gender norms and bias the limitations of modeling particular people as universal can be seen in applications of AI as diverse as voice recognition image detection and machine translation all of these applications currently recognize men at higher rates than women but gender bias does not refer only to bias against women the
Existing Norm data collection algorithms and computer processing um thank you very much um good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you to the interparliamentary union for having me my name is Shimona I’m an associate researcher at the United Nations Institute for disarmament research um and also voiced the video that you just
Saw from Unity um allow me to start with a very short background around the gender military and Technology Nexus so that it can put in context my uh my remarks going forward um so across militaries there is a rampant idea of militarized masculinities that is the
Idea that real men um are real soldiers and anybody else is not and this militarized m masculinity then becomes masculinized militaries which is military cultures that regurgitate and repeat the notion of military equals male through their structures and processes apart from this we also know
Now that while AI may appear to be so it is not neutral and and can internalize and then catastrophically enhance gender biases across societies and program them into AI systems or ignore them in outputs um so adding to this is also the over aring issue of the specific and
Marked death of women in stem uh which is Science Tech uh engineering and Mathematics and icts as well which makes it difficult to mainstream gender specific issues across Tech when we speak about numbers only about 8% of software professionals are women um only about 0.3 to 20% of women form uh
Militaries around the world and only about 1/5th of the diplomats in small and specialized disarm forums around lethal autonomous weapons are women according to Unity research and these high stakes Technologies are thus fundamentally conceived developed deployed and also governed in a gender vacuum um we are also seeing that gender
Is seen as a soft security issue in policy considerations as opposed to hard security deliberations which get more focus and the inclusion of gender and technology is also seen as uh as a last priority and uh is sort of characterized as an ethical uh concern rather than a
Core tech one um so to prevent gender from becoming an afterthought in the development of military AI systems it is important to identify where the gender gaps are and fill them throughout the life cycle of these systems and thus I’m very happy to see ipus work around gender equality in a
Very substantive manner especially also as it comes to lethal autonomous weapons since I spoke of blanks I will quickly highlight three blanks and also propose Solutions to fill them the first is the technological blank so we know that gender biases in AI systems can be either a result of flawed data sets of
Uh algorithmic processing of these data sets through machine learning models or of the human developers who annotate and then supervise these systems at various checkpoints across the system um so bias data sets um unsupervised machine learning models and these humans who are designing them if they do not correct
The datab bias then it presents itself in the output stage a Stanford study of publicly available information across 133 biased AI data sets uh it showed that there is 44% exhibited gender bias and 26% exhibited both gender and racial biases um and then another research by the MIT media lab called gender Shades
Also shows that across most softwares that uh that indulge in facial recognition systems based on AI systems 99% recognize white male faces but only 67% recognize darker female faces so the harmful effects of these are very visible from the civilian example um we’ve seen Apple’s sexist credit card
Algorithm that was revealed to have provided significantly higher credit ratings to men as as compared to their female counterparts with no other plausible differentiating Factor apart from gender since Technologies like AI are dual use and dual purpose in the way that they are designed and employed this
Kind of system when employed on a battlefield can also result in very very harmful U uh harmful side effects such as Target profiling on the basis of gender and misidentifying civilian women as non-human objects to engage with them in Conflict settings thus we need to ensure that we are in investing in
Gender disaggregated data sets um through several uh pipelines across the the public information system with a focus on public offices like National statistics offices and this should then be followed by employing explainable and responsible AI systems and also getting the human developers and designers of these systems to gender sensitization
Trainings apart from the technological hurdle there’s also a legal hurdle um there are not noticeable gaps in Weapons review processes across the world most of these are conducted under the article 36 of the first additional protocol of the Geneva conventions which does not specifically mention gender however since these weapon review
Processes are largely dependent on how the States per perceive them and then pursue them um there is uh there is a lot of uh potential for these states to also employ gender sensitive Weapons review processes within their National functioning on a third point on nor normative and policy
Options uh the main Forum where lethal autonomous weapon systems have been discussed has been the group of governmental experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems under under the convention on certain Conventional Weapons or the gge law laws for short this uh conversation has been convened since 2017 uh and has continuously mentioned
Social biases and gender biases within its functioning however apart from this particular normative instrument we also have the instrument of an overarching feminist forign foreign policy which a lot of countries have now also adopted and this foreign policy can then also play into sensitizing and prioritizing gender issues across the board also in
Lethal autonomous weapon systems uh and apart from this uh on a last point there is also uh national action plans under the women peace and security agendas uh of the UN Security Council 1325 which can also then uh include lethal autonomous weapon systems and gender processes within National
Policy measures in conclusion it is also crucial to ensure that crosscutting measures like interdisciplinary evaluations of these systems and and also employing diverse teams is important um I wish the ipu much luck and success on this endeavor within their ambots thank You Linda e Okay minia For for For For For te For For India indon Mahon honorable president of women parliamentarians and chairperson of the Forum of women women parliamentarians our world is going through turbulence times and many women and girls are are being hit hard as digital Technologies races ahead women and girls should not be left behind the development of artifi artificial
Intelligent EI not only present huge opportunities for human progress but also bring enormous challenges I believe that eii should be comprehensively regulated at the national level Indonesia has formulated the national strategy on EI which aim at her har harnessing its potential for the people in addition any effort to promote the
Development of EI must consider how to close the digital gaps how to reap the benefits of EI for gral potential for all how to mitigate risk and challenges to bring harm to the people and how to enhance Global digital and EI governance moreover there is specific concern with regard to the development
Of the lethal autonomous weapon systems this is especially because the type of weapon can be used without human control the impact of this weapon to women and children in war zone will be unim unimaginable hence there should be an international arrangement to manage this issue major EI power should impose self
Restraint to limit the spread of Le autonomous weapons we should also consider to develop legally binding instrument through Pro to to prohibit or regulate Leal autonomous weapon system with without such measures the development of this type of weapon will bring ethical humanitarian and security concern furthermore another concern is
The possibility non-state actor to deploy homemade autonomous weapons by changing civilian devices into military purpose distinguished delegates despite Global effort for women’s empowerment and equality women and children are still the most vulnerable and effective during a conflict War as in in Gaza and Ukraine we have seen in Gaza recently
Among those who were brutally attacked killed and targeted by Israel forces 60 67 for 67% are women and children it is a painful wake up call for Global Community to invest more on women peace and security agenda women make up he of the world of population therefore women
Are integral part of the solution and effective agent of this to address this issue we as women leaders must take concrete action we must encourage women’s leadership in the peace Pro process likewise we also must ensure that women are actively involved in the development of EI and its related
Technology and what by doing so women will will understand the impact of EI including autonomous weapon of them themselves as Parliament it is our duty to make sure that women are in the room during peace negotiation to conclude let us work together to Foster women’s leadership to achieve durable peace
Thank you thank you thank you so Much thank you chair I’m here you feel thank you chair okay For For Human Rights Watch A Uh For I thank you so much thank you so Much thank you very much uh honorable chairperson honorable members my name is Sylvia Lucas and I’ve been a long-standing member of this forum for women parliamentarians firstly I want to commend our leadership for this very important and very interesting discussion that we are ensuing on today as we are confronting the social and
Humanitarian aspect of the use of autonomous weapon systems on Humanity it is imperative that we include this gender perspective in our approach women and girls are often disproportionately a affected by armed conflicts and the use of autonomous weapon systems can exacerbate the vulnerability of women and their communities it is essential to
Understand how these Technologies intersect with existing gender Dynamics potentially magnifying existing challenges faced by women girls and marginalized groups in Conflict affected areas we must consider the potential impact of deploying autonomous weapon systems on women’s security access to essential resources and the the overall P power dynamics in Conflict zones by
Integrating a gender perspective into our discussions and potentially regulatory Frameworks on this systems we can better account for the specific needs and vulnerabilities of women ensuring that our approaches to technology and conflict resolution are inclusive and effective in this regard we want to propose the following recognizing that autonomous weapon
Systems may present unique risk to women and marginalized communities in Conflict Z zones and thus Parliament should actively advocate for the integration of gender based impact assessments when establishing guidelines and regulations related to the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems in order to mitigate potential disproportionate arm to women and
Marginalized groups encouraging Parliament to emphasize the importance of ensuring women’s meaningful participation in decisionmaking processes related to the development regulation and use of those systems as they insights are vital to understanding the Technology’s potential impact on communities especially in Conflict settings and the proof legislation that accounts for the gender implications of
Autonomous weapon systems by integrating these perspectives these gender perspectives our approach to addressing the social and humanitarian impact of autonomous weapon systems will become more comprehensive and Equitable fostering a safer and more inclusive environment for all affected by armed conflict and I thank you China China China oh thank
You oh no voice can you hear it’s from from can you hear me uh we’re using the French interpretation so it goes from the French interpretation Channel Sorry thank you a for for thank you Sh am F z am Loos thank uh thank you Mr Mrs president uh it’s Alexandra tal is from the Republic of Cyprus as conflicts and humanitarian crisis continue to ravage populations and hinder the prosperity of societies in many parts of the world including Cyprus Ukraine Palestine Israel Syria
Iraq Afghanistan to name a few we must address the dis disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women on one hand and on the other we need to push our Executives to guarantee the equal and substantive participation of women in peace processes towards this end the Cyprus House of Representatives
Adopted a resolution last week stressing the need to further highlight the role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts as well as in The Bu peacebuilding processes in addition it welcomes the adoption of the Cypress National plan for the implementation of the resolution 1325 for cot women parliamentarians this
Is a crucial issue as this year marks the 50th annivers it of the Turkish invasion in Cyprus 50 years of occupation of the northern part of Cyprus 50 years since women from both communities were expelled or obliged to leave their homes and become refugees in their own countries 50 years since they
Saw their sons and husbands killed 50 years since we are waiting for missing people to come back or to know what happened to them them and we receive little bones for from Mass burial grounds that’s why we are desperate for a resumption of the peace talks that
Will lead to a just and viable solution a solution that will allow us to build a better future for our children that’s why we demand more women from both sides at the negotiating table G our colleagues is a failure of humanity to rise above hatred and greed it is
Destroys lives the lives of innocent people but most of all the lives of women women were used as tools to hurt the opponent women were are raped they are used as Shields but we are not comfortable in this role of victim we are not comfortable in this
Role we want a place at the negotiating table because we have a dream a dream of rebuilding our country a build for peace for our children a dream that will bring former opponents at the same table for peace and prosperity for our country thank you very much uh sh For for For Shukran For Sh Fali For for s gracias uh Malsia Malaysia thank you Madame chairman my name is z I’m from Malaysia a senator in the Upper House autonomous weapons and AI are the systems that by Nature Select and engage targets without meaningful human control their lack of human control causes significant humanitarian consequences widen the acts of gender-based violence
And increase inequality as a result of algorithmic bias or Target profiling emerging Technologies like facial and vocal recognition have the tendency to have higher failure rates in recognizing women people people of color and persons with disabilities the use of autonomous weapons that rely on these Technologies would highly result in higher risk for
These vulnerable groups and anyone who does not fit within the norm determined by the program laws should proit Pro prohibit the development production and use of an nous weapons that Target People based on profiling dehumanize the use of force and lead to discrimination in essence the law should
Also include regulations to ensure all other autonomous weapon systems are never used without meaningful human control autonomous weapon systems are a grave problem that can impact in any country in the world all AI must be used for peace and security and women must have a seat at the table to ensure good
Decisions are made this is crucial to to ensure peace and stability is achieved finally Malaysia affirms it commit its commitment to ensure that women and girls are given a space and opportunity to participate in the development process thank You Thailand for Del thank you Madame shair the terror of Lal autonomous weapon system or autonomous weapon is that generative AI can be programmed to be sensitive of respond to women Voice or faal recogniz recognition especially women faal structure from this example it is expent
Seen that the use of laws can affect the Safety and Security of women to live their life hence opposing the de development and the use of AWS is crucial for the protection of Human Rights and dignity including from gender based violations also Thailand support Clause 12 that measure to ensure
Gender perspective based on United Nation Security Council resolution 1325 as a landmark resolution for women peace and so security shall be adopted apart from the Urgent needs for preemptive National laws to retain meaningful human control over the use of false National Parliament should urge that governments to work with other
State to conclude a new legally biding International instrument prohibiting fully autonomous weapon system in compliance with the international humanitarian law finally the education on stem for women and girls should be promoted to bridge the gap in this field between male and female female student as UNESCO has indicated in one of its
Research cracking the court G and women’s education in stem that sdg includes specific Target for countries to enhance access to stem education and Technologies and to reduce gender disparity to comply with the expectation of the sa result for women and girls to have equal opportunities to contribute
To and benefit from stem Thailand would like to suggest Parliament to engage women in managing the impact and risk of the robotic Automation and AI on their life and livelihood thank you so much thank you thank you for all the inspiring speak speakers I am gamina Shakur from the Netherlands
Representation matters when we look around today we see countless women who serve as shining examples for many girls and boys inspir inspiring them to believe that they too can make a difference in the world it is true diverse representation that we can ring about meaningful change and address the
Needs and concerns of all members of society and still I stand before you today deeply troubled by a concerning development within our country the Netherlands it just has come to light that on on popular pornographic website images of dozens of well-known Dutch women also parliamentarian are being used in fake pornography videos created
Using AI techn technology these so-called deep fakes superimpose the faces of victims into the bodies of foreign actresses of Despicable Act of manipulation and violation this AI weapon is not only morally condemnable but also illegal in our country the Dutch government is moving to address this issue with legislation on sexual offenses being
Approved in the Senate to combat this uh heinous practice we cannot allow women to continue to be systematically victimized by the abuse of a i technology the creation is distri distruption of these deep fake videos not only violate the dignity and privacy of the individual involved but also uh
Harmful stereotypes and undermine the Integrity of our society we must take a stand against such exploitation and manipulation how can we condemn these actions how can you reject the mission of II technology to manipulate and undermine women particularly those in position of power and influence thank you me in for graas Yeah thank you Madame chair the my name is Patricia p I the women of caucus of the parliament of Ghana like all parliamentary bodies holds a crucial role in recognizing and addressing the implication of artificial intelligence on Democracy human rights and the rule of law Parliament can contribute to shaping
Policies that strike a balance between leveraging the benefits of artificial intelligence and mitigating is societal impact in this regard some of the measures which the parliament of Ghana has adopted in this direction includes legislative Frameworks and regulations oversight of parliamentary committees and agencies public awareness and engagement programs and collaborations
With stakeholders and international organizations Ghana’s Ministry of communication and digitalization in collaboration with smart Africa GIS Fair forward and the future Society has formulated a comprehensive policy document to regulate the usage of artificial intelligence within Ghana entitled the Republic of Ghana national artificial intelligence strategy 2023 to
2033 this document is slated for the presentation of cabinet in the near future all although there is no existing legislative framework around AI in Ghana strides have been made to lay down a legal regime that can regulate the deployment and use of artificial intelligence in a manner that respects
Human rights democracy and the rule of law the 1992 constitution of the Republic of Ghana has some Provisions including the article 12 and 33 which guarantee the fundamental rights and Provisions and freedoms of citizens including the rights and freedom associated with effective use of Mis and
Misuse of AI or any AI activity that results in the breach of Human Rights the Parliamentary select committee on communication oversees the implementation of the national cyber security policy and strategy through cyber security Authority there’s also a parliament select committee on defense and interior which has oversight over
Both internal and external Security in Ghana it is expected that these committees will address most of the security challenges associated with the use of artificial intelligence in the near future Madam chair also members of parliament actively employ social media platforms and engage with the public in person to enhance awareness facilitating
Dialogue and obtain feedback on legislative measures related to AI the MP strive to equip citizens with knowledge turning to that in conclusion Madam chair the impact of artificial intelligence on Democracy human rights and the r of is complex thank you Madame chairman um I’m thankful to be here today I’m also
Grateful for all the efforts that been made to come with this agenda and the topic but I’m most encouraged by the opening speech of the Secretary General today he said and they quot your voice will be heard I would like to keep my voice to humanity as anything else comes second
The world today is watching a historic moment and as we meet today the record says 31,000 people been killed in Gaza 70% are women and children so I would like to call this woman Parliament the woman Parliament today to join one voice for fair resolution of the people of Gaza thank You Ass V Ben repr thank you thank you very much your Excellency I wish to to appreciate the presentation made by the researcher which has really highlighted that what we see what we hear and participate in influences are thinking my name is Honorable tan I’m the deputy speaker in the parliament of the National Assembly
The kingdom of lutu in light with the debate this morning my contribution on the involvement of women in AI for military purposes contains a few elements for one um just as in other artificial intelligence Fields women do offer diverse perspectives in military AI development leading to more comprehensive and effective Solutions
Their input can help identify potential biases and ensure that AI systems are ethically developed and deployed our intervention Madame chairperson as representatives in our various parliaments need to reflect that diversity from the norm where military is perceived as male Mitigation Of gender bias having women involved in the
Development process of AI systems can help identify and mitigate such biases ensuring that AI Technologies are fair and Equitable this says our parliaments Madame chairperson need to accelerate the mainstreaming of gender on education particularly in Steam areas Madame chairperson genderized diversity within military AI systems can lead to better decision making processes by
Incorporating a wider range of viewpoints and considerations we must work very hard in Rising to leadership in military Spaces by having laws systems and cultural norms that are restrictive that are not rather restrictive to women gearing for leadership in such spaces commonly appreciated for the males women’s caucuses in our different parliaments
Need to play a representative role in advocating for women in leadership in the overall Madame chairperson women’s involvement in military AI development can also focus on a on humanitarian consideration such as minimizing civilian casualties as we’ve just heard from um our honorable uh CH lady from from Oman um the perspectives especially
With the national action plans on un 1325 EST stated can lead to the development of AI systems not that do not uh that prioritize ethical and humanitarian principles we cannot argue that women as peacekeepers play a critical role representation and inclusivity can be accommodated when women are part of the spaces for
Military purposes in the AI we rarely see women leading parliamentary committees that are presumed to be male and as such our parliaments must be purposeful in having women in committees related to military intervention in lutu Madame chairperson we appreciate the importance of women in positions commonly reserved for men where we have
A female minister of Science and Technology and we’ve just welcomed a young female to the position of the Comm Commissioner of Poli L who is the second ever in the country and contributing to the overall security of citizens more closely Madame chairperson to the debate in question we do have 16% females in
The Military but we now have the first female to be promoted to the major of Major General to the rank of Major General the highest rank in the local Army such changes create room for women to challenge the norm and I thank you Madame chairperson thank you Canada Canada Canada um For For or A sh France Sal Fr mer good afternoon thank you to all the delegates for your inspiring speeches I’ve really love learned a lot so thank you very much my name is Joan Pereira one of the parliamentarians in Singapore I’d like to speak on how AI social media technology can be harnessed to bring
People together through crisis in June 2021 the constituency that I oversee has many elderly and it was a pandemic cluster it was dark days because many of the vulnerable elderly and disadvantaged families were separated because they had to be isolated and the well-being of the elderly was badly affected however through social media
Through phone calls neighbors comprising men women children both young and old who are neighbors stepped in very readily to distribute food sanitizers masks take them out for vaccine check on their well-being befriend them or just simply check in on them by giving them a call and this has really in my view
Brought the community close together regardless of race language religion culture so in my view what is important is that Tech AI social media can and should complement the good work that we women do it complement the Personal Touch that we women whether we are parliamentarians or not are excellent at
So I wish all of us a fruitful session and to all our Muslim brothers and sisters a blessed Ramadan thank you very much list Mar C In An Resp For For For J E For for For Say R For e