#16Pledges: Raise awareness of girls, children and parents to combat gender-based discrimination

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Day 6 of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

#16Pledges: IAWRT members around the world share their efforts and vision how they can contribute to eliminating violence against women

 

Senior Journalist CRTV and IAWRT Cameroon Chapter head Tchonko Becky Bissong: I pledge to raise the awareness of girls, children and parents to combat gender-based discrimination

 

As a gender and women’s rights advocate working in the broadcast media in Cameroon, I have been raising the awareness of women, girls and parents on the need to review mentalities, the values we impart to children as we groom them from childhood because gender-based discrimination are mostly rooted in our culture and belief systems.

 

My advocacy involves men who so cherish their mothers, daughters and sisters and will go

all lengths to protect and empower them. Unfortunately when it comes to their wives, several socio-cultural norms as well as customary and traditional practices demean women and girls to objects, thus trampling on their rights.

 

During the annual campaign #16daysofactivism2020 and thereafter, I recommit to intensify the awareness and advocacy by ensuring that legal instruments are implemented and that victims as well as survivors of all forms of gender-based violence (GBV) make use of these laws to seek justice, protect themselves and others and above all, work to #EndGBV in #Cameroon.

 

#16Pledges: Support communities to develop their own media for community dialogue and debate, empowerment and development

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Day 5 of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

#16Pledges: IAWRT members around the world share their efforts and vision how they can contribute to eliminating violence against women

 

EMPOWERHOUSE founder Birgitte Jallov from Denmark: I pledge to continue to support communities develop their own media as platforms for community dialogue and debate, empowerment and development.

Through assessments of the impact of these small community-owned media, I have seen how one of the core impacts always is: less violence against women and children! Always! Breaking the silence disrupts the secrecy. It works!

 

Birgitte has for a lifetime worked to support communities find their voice when building their own community radio stations. In her home-country, Denmark, she in the early 1980s was the co-founder of a women’s radio within a grassroots community radio. Since then she has supported dozens communities all over the world create theirs – always with a strong role for women.

 

Meeting in BirZeit, Palestine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

    Meeting in BirZeit, Palestine  

                                                                                                                                                                              

Community radio assessment in Nonghet, Xiengkhouang Province, Laos

 

   Assessing the women’s community radio in Tera, in Niger’s desert                              In a village in the southwest of Uganda –

                                                                                                                                                 doing impact assessment of the local community radio

 

As an active IAWRT member, Birgitte has helped develop and run a project supporting rural women in Africa make active and productive use of social media, and facilitated a participatory process, where IAWRT formulated its current strategic plan.

 

#16Pledges: Global advocacy for women journalists to do their-truth telling

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Day 4 of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

#16Pledges: IAWRT members around the world share their efforts and vision how they can contribute to eliminating violence against women

Nupur Basu from India – senior journalist and Executive Producer of Velvet Revolution – pledges to continue advocacy globally for the right of women journalists to do their truth telling.

 

The last decade has seen dozens of women journalists in the world being killed, raped, jailed and intimidated because the state or non-state actors don’t like these women speaking truth to power. Whether it is in India, Philippines, Ireland, USA, UK, Malta, Zimbabwe , Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia – the list is endless . Name the country, and the proverbial red line that existed before in ensuring the safety of women journalists, has been breached. 

 

I pledge to keep doing advocacy demanding an end to impunity of those who kill, imprison and compromise the safety of women journalists. I shall do this through my writings and with our IAWRT produced long documentary – Velvet Revolution – of which we have held over 250 screenings all over the world followed by Q and A with audiences since it was released in March, 2017. Civil society must defend the rights of women journalists and end the violence against them if they want their democracies to function. I pledge to passionately emphasise this at every forum available to me in the future as I have done in the past .

 

 

#16Pledges: Work for the release of journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and to fight back against attacks on journalists

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Day 3 of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

#16Pledges: IAWRT members around the world share their efforts and vision how they can contribute to eliminating violence against women

 

The IAWRT Secretariat in the Philippines pledge to continue to work for the release of IAWRT member and journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and to fight back against attacks on journalists.

 

 

Cumpio was arrested and jailed since February 2020 through a police raid via a search warrant of Cumpio’s media outfit’s office, Eastern Vista, where firearms and explosives were said to have been found. Similar incidents of raids yielding what the accused and their counsels refer as  “planted evidence” have happened before and continued after Cumpio’s arrest.

 

Negros community media group Panghimutad was also raided on October 2019, where journalist and IAWRT member Anne Krueger was arrested, detained and then released on bail but continues to face ‘illegal possession of firearms and explosives’ charges.

 

Another community broadcaster of IAWRT’s disaster radio program Radyo Sugidanon, Elena Tijamo was abducted in June 2020 by suspected state elements while Cebu was on COVID-19 lockdown, and remains missing to this day.

 

Aside from those arrested or jailed or missing, a few IAWRT members in the Philippines are also facing libel charges for their work and reporting. Most of them, who belong to community or alternative media, were also red-tagged in relation to their media outfit, their work and their reports. In the Philippines, red-tagging has become a dangerous prelude to more or graver human rights violations or attacks.

 

We pledge to continue to call attention to these attacks against IAWRT members in particular and against journalists and press freedom in general. We will continue to condemn, call out, fight back– be it in the media, in courts or in the streets – against these attacks that attempt to silence journalists and also the attempt to hide from the public underreported stories about the plight of the marginalized.  

 

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IAWRT Secretariat:

Lady Ann Salem, Communication Officer

Sanaf Marcelo, Finance and Admin Officer

as supervised locally by IAWRT International Board Treasurer Jola Diones-Mamangun

#16Pledges: Build women journos’ capacities amid job and pay cuts during COVID-19 pandemic

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Day 2 of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

#16Pledges: IAWRT members around the world share their efforts and vision how they can contribute to eliminating violence against women

IAWRT Intl Board Secretary and Uganda Chapter President Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye: I pledge to champion engagements with journalists especially the female journalists on avenues to explore the use of different platforms and gadgets to sustain independent and meaningful contribution to the information flow regardless of the job cut offs amidst COVID-19.

 

With the rampant job and pay cuts with in the traditional media houses accelerated by the effect of COVID-19, it is more than essential to accumulate skills diversification and innovation to take advantage of the different online platforms to facilitate the objective and sustainable media practice.

 

I am planning to engage and strengthen different partnerships with a number of stakeholders to mobilize female journalists under the IAWRT Uganda Chapter to share and exchange knowledge and skills.  

#16Pledges: Research and solutions to combat gendered violence vs women journos

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Day 1 of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

#16Pledges: IAWRT members around the world share their efforts and vision how they can contribute to eliminating violence against women

 

Associate Professor Fiona Martin from Australia: I pledge to research and disseminate solutions to combating gendered violence against women journalists in the Asia Pacific region and globally.

 

I am helping document how women journalists are experiencing online attacks, how they are responding and what political, legal and workplace policy changes could help mitigate this problem. In this I am working with Dr Jenna Price, Ms Ayesha Hasan, Ms Liana Barcia and Ms Nirasha Piyawadani, on the Asian region section of the UNESCO funded Online Harassment Project, auspiced by the International Center for Journalists.

As well, I have been helping GenderVictoria and Australia’s media union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, develop guidelines for moderating social media accounts and comments sections, in order to reduce the incidence of gendered violence in these sites, and to support women’s increased, safe participation in the online public sphere. I also spoke at GenderVictoria’s recent UnderThe Radar conference about taking an intersectional approach to tackling gendered cyberhate and misogyny online. 

Solidarity with women in Poland’s Women’s Strike (Strajk Kobiet)

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Global Alliance on Gender and Media in Europe statement of support

Call on the Polish government to support work on the elimination of violence against women, as well as ensuring women’s sexual and reproductive rights

 

As 25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women members of the Global Alliance on Gender and Media in Europe express solidarity with women in Poland, united under the banner of Women’s Strike (Strajk Kobiet) in defense of their right to self-determination.

 

Violence against women can take the form of denying women access to affordable and adequate sexual and reproductive health care, including the right to choose whether and when one becomes pregnant and decides to continue with the pregnancy. Access to abortion is part and parcel of comprehensive health services, fundamental human right! Yet, the Polish government once again decided to restrict women in Poland from having access to reproductive health services and challenged their right to safe motherhood.

GAMAG Europe expresses firm opposition to this treatment of women by the Polish government. Opinion polls show that as many as 70% of Poles support Women’s Strike and understand the unethical nature of the attempt to tighten abortion law in Poland, in effect forcing women to continue pregnancies in cases when fetuses have severe congenital defects.

That is why GAMAG Europe supports Women’s Strike in Poland. Attempting to deprive women of their rights and civil liberties at a time so difficult for Poland, Europe and the world as the COVID -19 pandemic is an expression of the worst political and social instincts. We stand in solidarity with Poles who are protesting, organizing and arguing that women’s rights, including the right to freedom from violence, are fundamental to the wellbeing of the whole society.

It is also with great concern we observe police violence against the protesters and the increased brutality against women, non-binary and LGBT people in public spaces in Poland. These developments are all the more terrifying in light of the Polish government’s attempt to revoke the Anti-Violence Convention. This European treaty aimed at combating violence against women, is the first legally binding treaty of its kind in the world and leaving the Convention would be a major setback in the prevention, prosecution and elimination of violence against women in Poland. We see this as yet another decision of the Polish government to legitimize violence against women at all levels.

GAMAG Europe expresses full support for the demands of the Women’s Strike in Poland and calls on the Polish government to support work on the elimination of violence against women, as well as ensuring women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Bearing in mind that gender equality is a principal value of the EU we call Ursula von der Leyen, the President of European Commission, to condemn the attempts made by the Polish government to restrict abortion rights in Poland, revoke the Anti-Violence Convention, as well as legitimize police violence against the protesters and journalists in Poland, a direct attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

 

Greta Gober, representative of GAMAG Europe Coordination Committee from Poland and Vice-President of  IAWRT; Joanna Warecha, member of GAMAG Europe from Poland, journalist, reporter and human’s rights activist.

Stockholm and Warsaw, November 25, 2020

 

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Republished from this link.

 

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End Violence Against Women

IAWRT IDEVAW Statement 2020

The International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) is one with the global community in the observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (IDEVAW) on November 25, also the start of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (from November 25 to December 10).

 

Violence against women is one of the most widespread and enduring human rights violations in the world today. It also remains largely unreported due to the stigma and shame surrounding it, contributing to impunity while impunity itself is among the reasons for unreported cases.

 

The United Nations noted how all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering this to be the Shadow Pandemic.

 

We stress our calls to end attacks against journalists, especially women and even our own IAWRT members around the world, some of whom have been at the receiving end of layoffs, assaults or arrests during coverage assignments, and/or online harassment during the lockdown in the months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

IAWRT is fully committed to its vision of a world where women have an equal voice and space in media and its objective of enhancement of women’s role and participation in media, as gender equality cannot be achieved without gender parity in media and communication. But these also cannot be realized, not even partially, when violence against women persist with impunity.

 

We encourage women journalists to continue to speak out against violence against women, to call for redress, justice and accountability from authorities, to give voice to survivors and victims and to contribute in any way so there can be a safer world for women.

New IAWRT board 2020

1102 NEW BOARD

IAWRT concludes first-ever online voting

Elected officers: Violet Gonda (President), Greta Gober (Vice President), Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye (Secretary), Jola Diones-Mamangun (Treasurer) and Mandira Raut, Reena Mohan, Bibiana Piene (Board Members).

 

A new IAWRT International Board was announced after the first-ever IAWRT online voting.

 

Violet Gonda, veteran journalist from Zimbabwe based in UK, is elected president in her second term. She has been named one of 7 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows 2020-2021 by the US based National Endowment for Democracy this October.

 

Greta Gober, media researcher from Poland based in Sweden, served a term as board member at large and is the newly-elected vice president. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the department of Media Studies, Stockholm University and the head of IAWRT’s Gender Mainstreaming Committee. 

 

Jola Diones-Mamangun, video journalist from the Philippines, is elected treasurer for her second term. Jola was also previously IAWRT Philippines Chapter head.

 

Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye, media consultant from Uganda, is elected secretary. She is IAWRT Uganda Chapter head.

 

Three Board Members were also elected – Mandira Raut from Nepal, Reena Mohan from India and Bibiana Piene from Norway.

 

Online voting took place from October 27 11pm GMT to October 31 11pm GMT. There were 206 who submitted their ballots out of 344 eligible voters.

 

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End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists

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In this year of the Covid-19 pandemic, journalists had to overcome new or deepening threats to press freedom, freedom of expression, their personal safety and safety at work.

IAWRT statement on International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists 2020

The International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) joins the observance of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists 2020.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a time when there were attacks on journalists covering the #BlackLivesMatter protests and other political events in the US, clamping down on protests and people’s right to dissent in social media and other platforms in extension of Covid-19 restrictions that various countries imposed, health hazards while covering the pandemic and the resulting job losses and closures in the media industry owing to a period that a large portion of the world was on lockdown.

 

These were all on top of the longtime problem of journalist attacks and killings, and the emerging problem of gender-based online harassment of journalists.

 

According to the research and data of the Committee to Protect Journalists, there have been 1,387 journalists killed between 1992 to 2020, among them 97 women journalists. This year, there have been 22 journalists killed, while 248 were imprisoned in 2019 and 64 are missing globally. Most of these cases have yet to bring the perpetrators and masterminds to justice. CPJ noted that killers go free in 8 of 10 cases of journalists murders, which is why it is important that we, along with the public, observe the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.

 

The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/68/163 at its 68th session in 2013 which proclaimed 2 November as the ‘International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists’ (IDEI). The date was chosen in commemoration of the assassination of two French journalists in Mali on 2 November 2013.

 

While we lament the dire situation of journalists in the world, we also celebrate small wins such as the repeal of criminal libel in Sierra Leone and hope and fight for more reforms to allow journalists to work unhindered. On the one hand, we continue to call for justice and decry the guilty verdict in the cyberlibel case of Maria Ressa in the Philippines, that was based on an antiquated law pre-dating the cyberlibel law and other more recent jurisprudence in the country.

 

Fellow IAWRT Philippines members have also been slapped with cases of libel during the pandemic, red-tagged as a prelude to further harassment, arrested based on search warrants yielding ‘planted evidence’ and one of them, Frenchie Mae Cumpio, remains in jail since February. Another community journalist, Elena Tijamo, was abducted by suspected state agents while her town was on lockdown and remains missing since June 13. We call on the release of Frenchie and all other journalists wrongly detained or only detained because of their line of work. We call for Elena to be surfaced, along with all other missing or disappeared journalists globally.

 

Violence against journalists and their media outfits are a threat and a violation of press freedom and freedom of expression and an offence against democracy, while the killing of a journalist is the ultimate form of censorship. On this day, we remember fellow women journalists who were murdered* and continue to call for justice and continue our fight for press freedom.

 

Gabrielle Marian Hulsen

Karmela Sojanovic

Aysel Malkac

María Carlin Fernández

Ilaria Alpi

Lissy Schmidt

Winifrida Mukamana

Yasmina Drici

Rachida Hammadi

Malika Sabour

Naïma Hammouda

Yasmina Brikh

Saïda Djebaili

Khadija Dahmani

Nadezhda Chaikova

Nina Yefimova

Veronica Guerin

Larisa Yudina

Amparo Leonor Jiménez Pallares

Maria Grazia Cutuli

Natalya Skryl

Zahra Kazemi

Nadia Nasrat

María José Bravo

Kate Peyton

Raeda Wazzan

Marlene Garcia-Esperat

Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla

Relangi Selvarajah

Hind Ismail

Atwar Bahjat

Maricel Vigo

Ogulsapar Muradova

Karen Fischer

Anna Politkovskaya

Naqshin Hamma Rashid

Luma al-Karkhi

Khamail Khalaf

Zakia Zaki

Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari

Sarwa Abdul-Wahab

Uma Singh

Anastasiya Baburova

Natalya Estemirova

Marites Cablitas

Lea Dalmacio

Gina Dela Cruz

Marife “Neneng” Montaño

Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro

Marie Colvin

Regina Martínez Pérez

Ghislaine Dupont

Nawras al-Nuaimi

Wassan Al-Azzawi

Rubylita Garcia

Elsa Cayat

Randa George

Dalia Marko

Flor Alba Núñez Vargas

Hindia Haji Mohamed

Sagal Salad Osman

Miroslava Breach Velducea

Gauri Lankesh

Daphne Caruana Galizia

Leslie Ann Pamela Montenegro del Real

Maharram Durrani

Wendi Winters

Norma Sarabia Garduza

Maria Elena Ferral Hernández

 

 

*Committee to Protect Journalists data on murdered women journalists from 1992 to 2020.

 

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