The UN Women Country Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Beatrice Eyong has charged the media to intensify efforts in ensuring that reports on women use gender-sensitive language, promote the rights of women and children, and avoid negative portrayal of women and unconscious undertones in their reports.
Eyong stated this at a national dialogue with media executives on gender-sensitive reporting organised by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women in collaboration with Women Radio.
Eyong emphasized the need to include women in decision-making processes in Nigeria to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.
In the same vein, CEO of Women Radio 91.7, Toun Okewale Sonaiya, has urged women to engage the media for more support and for more women to own traditional and new media organizations to balance news reportage on women.
Executive Director, Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Motunrayo Alaka urged the reporters to keep reporting issues on women until there is a shift in the case.
The meeting addressed gender inequality gaps and the seclusion of women in political participation while underscoring the need for proper media representation of women.
The media executives reflected on the gender gaps and stereotypes in the media and proffer solutions on how to give visibility and prominence to women’s stories in their editorials and reports as equal stakeholders in the society.
Journalists were also trained in gender-sensitive reporting and they also pledged to reflect gender sensitivity in their reports and engagements with citizens.
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