Member of the Libyan High National Elections Commission (HNEC), Rabab Halab said that the commission had detected more than 1,300 cases of violence against women in politics.
Addressing the inaugural session of the Regional Conference to Enhance Women Electoral Participation on Sunday, Halab reviewed the first report of the Monitoring Electoral Violence against Women Platform, indicating that the commission had analysed nearly 38,000 posts on social media.
She explained that this is based on a combination of artificial intelligence, and the findings of the electoral commission’s monitoring unit.
Halab added that the report “aims to enhance the integrity of elections, combat false and misleading news and hate speech, and monitor electoral irregularities, using modern technologies and artificial intelligence.”
According to the Commission’s report, the platform, which is organised with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), “is one of the most important projects of the unit’s plan for the year 2023.”
Halab explained that the platform is used in many countries, including Tunisia, Lebanon, and Peru. She added that “methodologies and action plans were reviewed, and samples and models of violence and electronic crimes directed against women were monitored on social media. The data collected through questionnaires monitored women’s regression from participating in the electoral process.”
As well as noting that it was concluded that “the greater the percentage of women’s participation in elections, the greater the electoral violence.” This indicated the importance of a strong platform to monitor electronic violence and electoral irregularities, which contributes to developing a strategy to address and reduce it.
In turn, the Chargé d’Affairs of the Canadian Embassy, and UNDP members confirmed their joy at being a part of the unit’s work.
They stressed the importance of this program as it “paves the way for broad participation of Libyan women in the elections, by monitoring and eliminating practices that hinder their participation.”
The program includes several topics, a general introduction to the process of monitoring social networking sites during elections, and combating misleading and false news, and violence against women in elections on the Internet.
