#16Pledges: Constant conversation and dialogue to fight against patriarchal social structures

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Day 10 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

 

 Community broadcaster and founder of Radio Mewat Archana Kapoor of India: I pledge to fight against patriarchal social structures and question the system of socialization that has made women the object of men’s tyranny and oppression, through constant conversation and dialogue.

 

I promise to not support or endorse any action or word that supports patriarchy and use community media to help provide women access and opportunity to speak up and break the silence. 

 

 

#16Pledges: Work to strengthen women participation in media, in peace talks, in political and social spheres in Afghan society

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Day 9 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

 

 

 Director General of The Killid Media Group in Afghanistan and IAWRT Afghanistan Chapter Head Najiba Ayubi: I pledge to work to strengthen women participation in media, in peace talks, in political and social spheres in Afghan society

 

Over the last two decades, Afghanistan has experienced a rise in women participation in the media sector. But the difficult years that women journalists have spent on trainings/learning have gone to media-related work under high security threats. In this period, several women journalists have lost their lives.

 

In the current situation, women achievements in general and specifically, women journalists’ achievements, need to be preserved.

 

We, in Afghanistan, continue our efforts to strengthen ways and processes towards information sharing and circulation and women participation in the political and social grounds.

 

We also maintain our efforts and constant communication with the peace negotiating teams of Afghan government and the Taliban so that the liberty and achievements of Afghan women are not falling as preys to the politicized peace.

#16Pledges: Facilitate job opportunities for women facing domestic violence and financial hardships due to COVID-19 pandemic

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Day 8 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 Board Member Mandira Raut of Nepal: I pledge to educate, train, and facilitate women who are looking for the opportunity to re-join their job or business, with special priority to those who are facing domestic violence and financial crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Through my organization “Utsah Nepal”, I have collaborated with national banks to provide micro-finance loans to the women, members of Utsah “Mothers’ Club, who are running small businesses. 

 

Utsah Nepal has employed women with disabilities to make ornaments from beads. We used to sell these products in the local and national exhibitions. But due to the pandemic situation, we are selling them using an online platform. We have a cluster of women groups who support and encourage each other in the business by sharing best practices, training, and networking through weekly and monthly virtual meetings.

 

A single mother of three 3 children, Maiya Sharma, who got support from Utsah Nepal says, “I was facing financial crisis due to the pandemic, but now I’m relieved because, through the support from the Utsah Nepal, I could get a loan from the bank with 5 % interest and could run my business of a small fancy shop. Earlier, when I needed to take a loan, I had to pay 18% interest to the Micro Finance companies”

 

#16Pledges: Research and solutions to make diversity and equality in the media a reality

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Day 7 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

 

 

Media researcher Dr. Greta Gober: I pledge to continue my research and educational work to make diversity and equality in the media a reality. 

 

Diversity amongst journalists has never been more urgently in need of attention. As anti-feminist and anti-minority positions are in ascendance across the world, including in liberal democracies, diversity among journalists remains one of top challenges faced by the news industry.

 

In 2021, I pledge to develop an educational project to dismantle race and gender inequalities in journalism education. I also pledge to create a podcast and a series of webinars about diversity management as innovation in journalism. 

 

 

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Greta Gober, media researcher from Poland based in Sweden, served a term as IAWRT 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. 

 

#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. 

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