‘WikiGap’ event by Swedish Embassy puts more Pakistani women on Wikipedia

Swedish Embassy in Islamabad organizes ‘WikiGap’ event to increase the number of articles on Pakistani women on Wikipedia

ISLAMABAD – The Swedish Embassy in Islamabad organzied an event on October 11-12 to increase the number of articles on Pakistani women in the online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia, with the aim of narrowing the gender gap on the internet.

Over the course of two days, volunteers created (50) new articles on notable Pakistani women and topics relating to women’s rights, such as women CEOs, entrepreneurs, lawyers, athletes and models.

New articles include names like; Rafia Qaseem Baig (the first Pakistani woman to enroll in bomb disposal unit), Kanwal Ahmed (founder of one of Pakistan’s largest female online groups, Soul Sisters), Munizae Jahangir (journalist), and Zainab Abbas (Pakistani cricket commentator and sports analyst).

“The purpose of organizing #WikiGap is to empower women to claim their entitled role in the public sphere. Let’s work together to close the internet gender gap”, said Swedish Ambassador H.E. Ingrid Johansson.

The Embassy of Sweden organized the event called #WikiGap, in partnership with Digital Rights Foundation, Media Matters for Democracy, and UN Women.

This event is a part of the global #WikiGap campaign, originally launched by Wikimedia Sweden and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. So far, almost 60 countries have taken part in #WikiGap. More than 1800 participants have added or updated more than 13,000 Wikipedia articles on prominent women in more than 30 different languages.

Wikipedia is the world’s largest online and user-generated encyclopedia, and the first port of call for those in search of information about a famous person or historical event. However, it’s currently far from equal. There are four times more articles about men than women and around 90 percent of those who write articles on Wikipedia are men. It’s obviously an inaccurate reflection of women’s achievements – and it has to change.

Sana Jamalhttps://about.me/sanajamal
Storyteller. Avid Reader. Learner to the core.

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