BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
Media practitioners have been described as key stakeholders in the fight against sexual, gender based violence and that their reports on issues of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights would go a long way in encouraging policies that would enable women to escape discrimination.
This was made known by a training facilitator, Omolara Oriye, a full-day We-Lead Media Training Workshop organised in Lagos by a non-governmental organisation, Vision Springs Initiatives for journalists in the South-West.
Speaking on the topic, “Intersectionality of Rights in Media Reporting,” Oriye, a lawyer, urged journalists to avoid the use of certain words such as ‘defilement’ when reporting on rape incidents as the meaning can make the victims and survivors to be more emotionally injured rather than the perpetrators.
Tasking journalists to expose bottlenecks that people face in accessing SRHR through their reports and to also educate government and other stakeholders on their roles at strengthening it, Oriye said, “When there is a culture of silence, a culture of abuse will thrive.”
She said, “The media advocacy on access to SRHR will lead to abandonment of discriminatory practices and encourage policies and practices that will enable women to take control of their SRHR by expressing their own demands and finding solutions to their own problems.
“Journalists and editors are advised to make their reporting gender sensitive by avoiding the use of stereotypes in their portrayal of women, sensationalistic and blown-up titles that highlight the brutal details in their accounts about violence against women and by focusing on investigative stories that paint a bigger picture of the phenomenon of violence against women, its causes and consequences. Media must assume a more active role in the prevention of violence against women and always keep in mind the effects of their stories when this type of violence is concerned.
“To report professionally and with impact, journalists need training on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) to not only help put SRHR issues into perspective but also help change negative and retrogressive cultural norms. We recognize SRHR as an advocacy issue and the media being a key partner in driving this agenda.”
Oriye urged the participants to be sensitive to intersectionality while writing their reports on gender and SRHR matters, saying, “Intersectionality recognizes that people’s lives are shaped by their identities, relationships and social factors. These combine to create intersecting forms of privilege and oppression depending on a person’s context and existing power structures such as patriarchy, ableism, colonialism, imperialism, homophobia and racism.”
