Women and Media (Pakistan)Global Issues

Journalist with Meri Awaz Suno, interviews a landless peasant in Hyderabad, Sindh. Photo: Internews Pakistan Issues of vital concern to women—child marriages in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the trafficking of women in Asia and Europe—are often ignored or covered only superficially by the media in their own countries. Across the globe, women journalists and media professionals work, many times under difficult circumstances, to bring light to the issues that affect all women. Internews media projects aim not only to open eyes to gender issues, but also to give voice to women so that they can change their lives for the better.

Mainstreaming Women’s Issues
To ensure that the media meet the needs of all media consumers, Internews works to foster women’s leadership in the media industry so that issues of vital concern to women are “mainstreamed,” integrated across all programming and not relegated to a niche market.

In communities where specific gender issues are underreported, such as gender-based violence or women’s health, Internews has developed special programs produced by and for women. Internews’ work with women has involved training women media professionals, fostering their leadership skills, and programming involving women’s issues in Chad, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Southern Caucasus.

Training Women Media Professionals
Internews is the leading international trainer of female media professionals, providing media training to over 5,000 women in some 30 countries each year. In 2005 there were twice as many male reporters as female reporters worldwide, according to the Global Media Monitoring Project. In the same year, 54% of Internews trainees were women.

Internews helps women get on the air and in the newsrooms in societies where their participation has been marginalized, allowing for reporting on all issues—not just women’s issues—to be done through the voices of women in that society.

Addressing Gender-Based Violence Against Darfuri Refugees
Many women who have survived the genocide and accompanying sexual violence in Darfur experience trauma so profound that grief turns to aggression. Desperate family members in the refugee camps have been known to leave these women tied up in their tents because of their unpredictable and sometimes violent behavior.

To help these and other women from Darfur, the local Internews reporting team is producing Elles Parlent, Elles Écoutent (She Speaks, She Listens), which is the region’s first radio program intended for Darfur’s female refugees. Topics include mental health services available to women in the camps, the role of men in sensitization campaigns on gender-based violence, and services available to teen mothers, some of whom are raising children resulting from rape or forced marriage. Another program topic of unique importance in the refugee camps is the risks and fears around collecting firewood—when girls and women leave the camps to collect wood for their cooking fires, they are sometimes threatened, injured or raped.

Internews Network’s Humanitarian Information Service airs Elles Parlent, Elles Écoutent on its network of community radio stations for the Sudanese refugees in Chad and the local population. This network now reaches more than half the refugee camps.

Pakistan’s First Radio Program by and for Women
In Pakistan, where only three percent of journalists are women, Internews launched Meri Awaz Suno (Hear My Voice). In 2003, Internews built a state-of-the-art independent radio production facility in Islamabad where women journalists are trained in radio reporting and production. They then produce Meri Awaz Suno, the country’s first independent syndicated program that features women as both producers and subjects.

The radio show airs on 19 independent radio stations across the country, and focuses on issues such as politics, education and health. Before Internews training, most reporters working on Meri Awaz Suno had little experience working in radio or journalism. Now they are leaders – the first women in Pakistan to work as independent broadcast journalists and serve as role models for young women.

Tackling Women’s Issues on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border
On the tense Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Internews launched a weekly radio program, Da Pulay Poray (On the Borderline) to foster peaceful cooperation in the region. Now produced by a local NGO, the program, which airs on independent stations on both sides of the border, includes features on hot topics such as the return of refugees and religious schools.

It is the first program in the region to address women’s issues—using women journalists—in an extremely conservative region. Topics have included the psychological and health consequences of girls marrying young; the practice of giving girls away in marriage to end disputes; giving women away to repay debts incurred against opium; and preventing women from getting medical care due to the stigma against women going out in public.

Gender Issues and Women Working for Peace in the Southern Caucasus
In the strife-torn Southern Caucasus region, Crossroads is a weekly Russian-language TV magazine that brings citizens of the region news and features about their neighbors in the voice of local journalists rather than filtered through national or Russian broadcasters. On each weekly program, Crossroads covers gender issues ranging from legislation on gender equality and domestic violence to reproductive health and education for young women. Each month the program features a woman leader who is working to reduce conflict and promote reconciliation in the tense region.

Local NGOs Internews Georgia, Internews Armenia and Internews Azerbaijan work together to produce Crossroads, which is broadcast in all three countries.

Programming on Gender Issues
Internews has created a range of programming that tackles sensitive subjects of particular concern to women. A few examples:

For the first time in Afghanistan, a radio program is presenting the lives of ordinary women, told in their own voices. Called “Mirror of Women,” the series has been broadcast in four major cities, Kabul, Herat, Mazar e Sharif and Jalal Abad. So far over 30 segments of 12-15 minutes each have aired.
The project was funded by UNESCO and implemented by Nai, Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan, a media development NGO that Internews helped create.
Pregnancy and childbirth. A weekly radio show for refugees from Darfur who have fled to eastern Chad, To Your Health, covered the medical consequences of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Following the program, there was a marked increase in the number of refugee women coming to camp clinics for prenatal counseling and to give birth, resulting in fewer complications, and consequently healthier women and babies in the camps.
Women and HIV/AIDS. Internews’ Local Voices program in Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire and India, which trains radio professionals how to cover HIV/AIDS effectively, ensures that journalists pay particular attention to the ways that HIV/AIDS affects women. As a result, radio stations have covered underreported stories such as the plight of widows who have lost their land after losing their husbands to AIDS, or the dangerous spread of HIV from matatu (taxi) drivers to young girls in Kenya, where the drivers often give schoolgirls free rides in exchange for sex. Local Voices has also been instrumental in mentoring promising female radio journalists and helping them to advance professionally.
Domestic violence and women’s rights. Internews Russia organized an unusual training and production project, “Because I’m a Woman,” that trained television journalists from 15 cities around Russia in how to cover women’s issues effectively and responsibly. Selected participants then went on to produce short films on violations of women’s rights in their towns, such as the problem of battered women. Regional TV stations then aired these programs as part of call-in or talk shows, to provoke discussion in their communities.

source: www.internews.org