Media executives drive plan of action to boost portrayal of Pacific women

Top media representatives meeting in Nadi have agreed on

an action plan to improve the portrayal of women in the media and help female staff rise to decision-making positions.  Seventeen media company managers and senior journalists from across the English and French-speaking Pacific have spent two days in Nadi, Fiji Islands, discussing and devising the Pacific Women in Media Action Plan.
 

The men and women at September 21 and 22 event included newspaper editors and the heads of television stations in Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa.


The plan, which they hope that  media companies all over the region will use as a template for change, calls on newspapers, radio and television organisations to act to promote gender equality. 

Veteran journalist Monica Miller, the former president of the Pacific Islands News Association, described the plan as very practical and called on her colleagues to adapt it to their own environments. 


The document states:  “We commend current and ongoing efforts to address gender inequalities, and further recognize that the media plays a powerful and influential role in shaping people’ attitudes and beliefs. “ 

Among the following recommendations are calls for media organisations to avoid using material that encourages or condones violence, and to resist rather than reinforce negative stereotyping. Other calls are for media organisations to promote human rights education, for sexual harassment in the workplace to be banned, and for offenders to be dealt with swiftly. 

Strategies devised by the group to achieve the plan’s goals include increasing media content that allows public discussion on “taboo” issues such as violence and women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, and to train staff in gender-inclusive language.

Co-organiser of the event, Julie Middleton of the Pacific Women’s Bureau at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, says the plan reflects the delegates’ many years of experience in the media.

“The delegates have all committed to taking action in their own countries and newsrooms,” she says.
“I hope that other media organizations will see this plan as a useful way to ensure they are doing the best they can by women. This is about the media playing its part in developing a Pacific where women enjoy the same opportunities as men.” 

The symposium was organized by the Pacific Women’s Bureau, UNESCO and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. The participants came from Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and New Caledonia.   

         Download the Pacific Women in Media Action Plan (format word, 437Kb)

For more information please contact Julie Middleton PWB women’s advocacy and communication officer on JulieM@spc.int

    Read the French version