A/HRC/23/50 30. These essential elements of democracy are a necessary condition for women’s substantive equality in public and political life. The Working Group would like to emphasize that there can be no true democracy without women’s full and equal participation in all its institutions and that women’s substantive equality in political and public life can be fully realized only in conditions of democracy. 31. There is growing recognition of the Internet as a key means by which individuals can exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression (A/HRC/17/27, para. 20). Through initiatives on e-government and e-democracy and the innovative use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by civil society, there is also a rising awareness of the Internet’s role in expanding the concept of citizenship online. The Working Group welcomes the work by the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and civil society organizations, and encourages them to continue such work so as to deepen the knowledge on gender differences in the use of the Internet and other ICTs. 32. Political transitions present an opportunity for States to democratize and to advance women’s equal representation in the reformed State institutions. However, they can also pose a danger of undermining or reversing human rights and women’s gains in public and political life achieved under the previous regime. In some political transitions, women who had been pro-democracy activists have been excluded from formal political processes negotiating the new division of power. 33. The conflict and post-conflict experience leads to an increased awareness of the different conditions of States, including weak, fragile, failed and/or hybrid States, and an increasing focus on State-building processes. State-building is understood as “purposeful action to develop the capacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state in relation to an effective political process for negotiating the mutual demands between state and societal groups”.17 Such processes reveal the complex and critical roles and relations of State and non-State actors in the renegotiation of the balance of power, the allocation of resources and entitlements, and the formation of the identity of whole nations. Contestations over national identity are heightened during times of political change and present new vulnerabilities for those women whose values, roles and behaviours do not fit the power elite’s idealized imagery of womanhood. Where identity politics are predominant, women’s movements defending universal standards of gender equality risk marginalization and stigmatization, especially when such standards are characterized as unwanted external influence and a source of threat. 1. Women’s equal enjoyment of fundamental freedoms and human rights 34. For women to have the capacity to participate in political and public life on equal footing with men, including to build autonomous movements for their own empowerment, they must be able to exercise their rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, movement and association. It is imperative to recognize and secure these rights as individual rights for women’s effective participation in political and public life, in the light of the complex tensions between collective rights and women’s rights. 35. Women’s right to enjoy their cultural rights as equals is an integral part of their right to participation in political and public life. In the light of the persistent use of cultural and traditional values to justify resistance to women’s political and public roles, women’s capacity for equal participation depends on their autonomous agency regarding cultural life. As articulated by the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, this involves: 17 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “Concepts and dilemmas of State building in fragile situations: from fragility to resilience,” Journal on Development, vol. 9, No. 3 (2008), offprint, p. 14. 9