Women and Children Among Topics in Final Workshops
10.12.08Although women make up the bulk of employees in Russian media, Azhgikhina said, men occupy 100 percent of top management positions.
She said the pay system, at first glance, would seem equitable. Men and women are paid salaries and bonuses and subsidies. But she said that while men and women in the field receive practically equal salaries, which are taxable, the bonuses and subsidies, which are not taxable, are much lower for women than for men.
Azhgikhina said women have been on the front lines of stories, including those in conflict zones, such as Chechnya. She added, however, that when the conflicts were concluded, it was women journalists who returned to gather the human sides of the aftermath of tragedies.
In Chechnya, she said, women told the stories of families and children who were left behind, took active roles in obtaining assistance where it was needed and actually, in some cases, paid for schooling.
“They became co-participants in the civil process,” Azhgikhina said, adding, “This was not the duty of the journalists; it was a human action.”
She provided a booklet, titled Landscape After The Battle: Gender Issues in Post-Soviet Journalism and Equality Policy of IFJ.
In a preface t the booklet, Aidan White, general secretary, International Federation of Journalists, said that more must be done to expand opportunities for women and to reduce inequalities.
Among his proposals:
Women journalists must be given the chance to speak for themselves and to be involved at all levels of decision-making;
Women leaders must be encouraged to recognize and advance the interests of women and men in creating a culture of equality within media;
Media must assume responsibility for the role they play in forming public opinion and ensure that portrayal of women reflects the values of gender equality and ensures space for consideration of issues that affect women in their daily lives;
The issue of gender equality must move from being an exclusive concern of women to being an issue for all. Women and men must join hands to confront social barriers and to ensure justice and equality.
Azhgikhna urged her audience to go to the web site gendermedia.ru and mentioned that there will be a seminar, under UNESCO, in Moscow on Feb. 2, 2009, about women journalists after conflicts and the language of participation and the language of peace.
In a workshop on media and the rights of children and adolescents, moderator Veet Vivarta, director, Agencia de Noticias dos Direitos de Infancia (ANDI), Brazil, discussed the challenges for organizations that are working in the field of media and the rights of children and adolescents, using the Latin American experience as a baseline for the debate.
ANDI was founded in 1993 in Brasilia by journalists Ambar de Barros and Gilberto Dimenstein and has become one of the main mediators between the mainstream news media and social groups that advocate for the rights of children and adolescents.
According to material Vivarta made available, ANDI’s approach is to:
a.Bring together journalists, media outlets, news sources, students and other social actors in order to mainstream children’s and adolescents’ rights in the media;
b.To collect, archive and classify all editorial production concerning boys and girls of a large set of Brazilian and Latin American newspapers, magazines and, more recently, TV newscasts.
C.To analyze news content previously collected and classified, and to provide journalists, news sources and journalist students and professors with tools and opportunities to enhance their skills and develop new capacities.
The morning workshops came on the final day of the Global Forum for Media Development in Athens, Greece. More than 460 people attended the forum from 106 countries. The forum, which began Sunday, Dec. 7, featured more than 100 speakers at 40 workshops, 12 regional caucuses and 13 panels.
David Rosso
US Journalist