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The media has been challenged to play a crucial role in educating people on the 16 days of activism against gender violence.
The 16 Days of activism against gender violence, which is held from 25 November to 10 December annually, is an international campaign aimed at raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels.
Speaking at the Fourth Gender and Media Summit and Awards, participants who attended the community and social media session, said gender partners should continue to use the media to advocate against gender-based violence.
Gender Links Justice Manager Loveness Jambaya Nyakujarah said gender and media partners have in the past harnessed the power of media in conveying advocacy messages.
“We believe that if you use media effectively and responsibility it can result in social transformation and media coverage of 16 Days has increasingly gravitated towards media activism over the years,” she said.
“We have provided the media with media kits, thematic sheets are produced to help media in their coverage of gender-based violence during that period, training is given to journalists on SADC GBV provision ethical standards … we also use ‘I’ stories as part of the aim to make every voice count, women and men who have experienced violence tell their own stories. There is also the issue of cyber dialogue where we use information technology for people to chat,” said Jambaya Nyakujarah.
Clementina Comate from Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Mozambique said they began engaging the media in campaigning against gender violence a few years ago.
“When you use the media it raises awareness. In Mozambique when this thing was started very people knew about it. We did not get media coverage because the media itself did not understand what the whole programme was about,” she said. “However since we started involving the media in our programmes there have been some big improvements and we are working well together to disseminate our campaign.”
Gladness Munuo from GEMSA Tanzania said violence against women and children continues to be a serious issue in Tanzania. “We are going to advocate during 16 days against violence, we will hold conferences and the media will be there to help by publicising the whole events,” she said.
Some of the questions that were also raised in the panel discussion included: Can the media be neutral in its coverage and is the media a mirror of society?
16 days against gender violence originated from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. Key dates to note during the campaign are 25 November: International Day of no Violence Against Women; 1 December: World AIDS Day; 3 December: International Day for the Disabled; 6 December: Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre- where 14 female engineering students were gunned down; and 10 December: Human Rights Day.
📝Read the emotional article by @nokwe_mnomiya, with a personal plea: 🇿🇦Breaking the cycle of violence!https://t.co/6kPcu2Whwm pic.twitter.com/d60tsBqJwx
— Gender Links (@GenderLinks) December 17, 2024
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