ISLAMABAD December 5, 2006: Communications and Women's Rights portfolio of ActionAid International Pakistan jointly organized a two day residential interactive training for journalists based on the theme of Media and Womens Rights. Journalists from Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad participated in this training. The panelists included Dr.Azra Talat Saeed, Mr.Shafqat Munir (Regional Communications Coordinator, ActionAid International Asia), Ms.Aqsa Khan (Manager Womens Rights Unit, ActionAid International Pakistan) and Ms. Irum Noor Muzzafar (Editor YOU magazine, The News, Karachi).
The two day training included sessions on Women's Rights issues stemming out of Patriarchy and Feudalism and perspective building of journalists on how to report and highlight womens rights issues in media. Dr Azra Talat Saeed briefed the participants' on how patriarchal system operates in the society and how it affects womens work and empowerment. The participants indulged into debate on questions such as what are womens rights, and why do we need women's rights?
The participants discussed issues such as discrimination towards women on the basis of gender, empowerment of women and their role in economic development, democratic and unbiased society, role of state, religion, culture and society in shaping social structures that promote patriarchy and disempower women, importance of right and access to education for women, womens right to individuality and personal identity, womens rights are human rights and should be considered as the corner stone for the realization of rights at all levels.
Speaking at the occasion Dr. Azra Talat said that women face discrimination at all levels, in jobs as well as society and home. She insisted on the need for the media to challenge the existing social structures and to explore and analyze the society through the womens rights perspective and bring out womens issues into lime light.
She further said that Patriarchy controls women through formal; legal channels, as well as through informal; cultural and religious norms and that rights are not a physical commodity that can be handed over to women but rights are realized and expressed through behaviors and attitudes towards women.
Mr.Shafqat Munir while speaking at the occasion said that whenever an issue of violence against women is reported in media, they usually focus on the victim who is the women, and give unnecessary details about her while the culprits are not properly highlighted, criticized and held accountable in the media. The need is to focus more and more on the culprits and to condemn their wrongdoings through media.
While talking about media routines and pressures he indicated that journalists face pressures from editors, advertisers as well as owners of the newspapers regarding the selection of any story or contents of the report. There are economic pressures on the media actors which control them in one or the other way through direct and indirect channels.
He also said that self censorship is a major issue of concern as it keeps the journalists from objective reporting and they start doing censorship at their own level as well. This self censorship develops after experiencing situations where their stories and reports are censored by the authorities in a persistent manner continuously over some period of time. As a result they start realizing the pattern of censorship dictated by various channels and then start practicing self censorship to avoid these situations in future. The true role of media is to bring such issues in public debate and discourse.
He said that the journalist play the role of agents of information for the general public, and they have the responsibility to collect, process and disseminate information in an objective manner. Another role that the journalists play is that of an opinion leader for the people.
Mussarat Bibi a rape victim gave her testimony and shared her thoughts with the participants. She said that she demands justice for herself and that the culprits should be punished and held accountable. She is fighting for justice and will continue to fights until her rights are realized.
The major objectives of the training were to impart training to journalists, both male and female on how to highlight and bring-out womens issues using media as a platform for giving voice to womens issues and concerns, to build their perspective and understanding on womens issues, working on changing the misperceptions about women's issues and ways of dealing with them; changing perceptions and approaches towards womens issues, interaction with media and identification of progressive, democratic and pro-womens rights elements, building linkages with such elements and at a later stage forming a network of journalists, at local or national or ideally both levels to start with, that can be supportively active in dealing with issues concerning women's rights and violence against women.
We believe that media, as conceived and designed, reaches a very large audience, and so is best for communications. It plays a vital role in the dissemination of information at all levels. Media in Pakistan, as per the international pattern, is traditionally male dominated. Men define and design media policies, priorities and agenda including how women are portrayed and presented and how women issues are covered and dealt with. The need is to change the perceptions and challenge these dominating structures that cause imbalances in the society. This can best be achieved through the media and by the media.
