The Global South faces unique challenges in achieving digital inclusion due to a heavy reliance on mobile devices for internet access and the prevalence of slow or unreliable networks. While numerous studies have investigated web accessibility within specific sectors such as education, healthcare, and government services, these efforts have been largely constrained to individual countries or narrow contexts, leaving a critical gap in cross-regional, large-scale analysis. This paper addresses this gap by conducting the first large-scale comparative study of mobile web accessibility across the Global South. In this work, we evaluate 100,000 websites from 10 countries in the Global South to provide a comprehensive understanding of accessibility practices in these regions. Our findings reveal that websites from countries with strict accessibility regulations and enforcement tend to adhere better to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) guidelines. However, accessibility violations impact different disability groups in varying ways. Blind and low-vision individuals in the Global South are disproportionately affected, as only 40% of the evaluated websites meet critical accessibility guidelines. This significant shortfall is largely due to developers frequently neglecting to implement valid alt text for images and ARIA descriptions, which are essential specification mechanisms in the HTML standard for the effective operation of screen readers.

翻译：全球南方在实现数字包容性方面面临独特挑战，这主要源于对移动设备上网的高度依赖以及普遍存在的网络速度缓慢或不稳定问题。尽管已有大量研究调查了教育、医疗和政府服务等特定领域的网络可访问性，但这些研究大多局限于单个国家或狭窄情境，缺乏跨区域、大规模的分析。本文通过开展全球南方移动网络可访问性的首次大规模比较研究来填补这一空白。本研究评估了来自全球南方10个国家的10万个网站，以全面理解这些地区的可访问性实践。研究发现，具有严格可访问性法规及执行机制的国家，其网站往往更能遵循《网页内容可访问性指南》（WCAG）标准。然而，可访问性违规对不同残障群体的影响方式存在差异。全球南方的盲人和低视力群体受到的影响尤为严重，仅有40%的被评估网站符合关键可访问性指南。这一显著缺陷主要源于开发人员经常忽视为图像实施有效的替代文本和ARIA描述——这些是HTML标准中保障屏幕阅读器有效运行的核心规范机制。