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PESHAWAR: Journalists at a media sensitisation workshop on Monday pushed the government for effective enforcement of laws against violence against women and early legislation against domestic violence. They also demanded establishment of gender units in media houses for better coverage of the incidents of violence against women.
Aware Girls, an NGO working for empowerment of young women and peace building in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, organised the workshop on ‘combating violence against women’, where journalists from Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Swabi and Mardan were in attendance.
Chief executive of Aware Girls Ms Gulalai Ismail told participants that instead of spotlighting victims of violence, media should focus on perpetrators of violence.
She said media coverage was entirely focused on violence victims though perpetrators of violence should be shamed to contain them.
Ms Gulalai said to highlight cases of violence against women, journalists didn’t need to go far away as these cases were all around them in the society.
She said the media’s rule had immensely increased, especially since several women-related laws had been made in the country and that it was direly needed that people should be educated on them.
The chief executive Aware Girls said to address violence against women, her organisation had designed a campaign with the theme ‘speak up against violence’ in which it would conduct activities at district and tehsil levels in five districts. She further said 15 debate competitions would be conducted in the boys’ colleges at tehsil level of the said districts.
Khairul Abrar, a journalist from Nowshera, said district correspondents had been highlighting incidents of violence but a lot more was still needed to be done. He said on press club level in different districts, awareness campaigns should be begun to sensitise the media about prevalent laws against violence.
Another correspondent, Ilyas Khan, said media organisations had a few women staffers and supported the idea of setting up gender units in media outlets. He said gender units would help check anti-women stereotypes in media.
Other participants suggested that contribution of female role models from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa be highlighted to create awareness among women.
They said in politics, contribution of Begum Naseem Wali Khan and Begum Kulsoom Saifullah could not be ignored as the former was the first women in Pakistan to be elected to the National Assembly on general seats.
Participants also said of late, two laws related to anti-women practices and prevention of acid throwing cases were enforced and that several other laws were earlier made but their enactment was not encouraging.
Journalists from Swabi said recently, they helped a girl of 12 years of age block her marriage with a 60-year-old man despite her parents’ strong opposition.
Later, an Urdu documentary titled ‘mein safar me hoon (I am in a journey)’ was also screened during the workshop displaying struggle of women in different fields since the country’s creation.
