By Mabinty M. Kamara
MeneEngage for Gender Justice, an equal rights organization, in partnership with Sonke Gender Justice, which is based in South Africa, has trained journalists in Freetown on Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) reporting procedures.
The participants were drawn from across print and electronic media.
The training, according to the organizers, was in cognizance of the critical role of the media in dealing with cases of SGBV in their daily reporting, vis-à-vis the need for them to be capacitated with skills to develop and report stories that seek to end the phenomenon and promotes equality.
David Tamba Makieu, Director for Men and Boys for Gender Equality Sierra Leone Country Network, told Politico that the media is a “very powerful” tool to reach out to communities with any message and create the desired impact within the shortest possible time.
“Journalists are very important. They are the gate keepers of information transformation system, so they are very important, because most issues that happen it is only through the good work of these journalists that we come to learn about them. They cumulate information from across. For our work as NGOs to be successful, the media is a very critical partner. So if we don’t engage through workshops like this, they are not informed, a lot of things will go wrong. So it is good that we engage and share knowledge from time to time,” he said.
In his presentations, Vusi Cebehkulu, Regional Coordinator for Sonke Gender Justice, noted that gender based violence issues are very critical and sensitive and therefore needed to be treated with professionalism and caution.
He went on to note that many people, especially men, do not report Gender Based Violence due to fear of how society will react to it, adding that it was the responsibility of the journalists to be coming up with programs that speak up to those problems in order to give confidence to survivors to speak up and be free.
He emphasized that in reporting GBV, a journalist should listen well and also ask to know the kind of help needed before rendering one, to avoid causing more harm than good.
Marion George, a broadcaster at Sky Radio, told Politico that the training did not only add value to her knowledge on GBV, but that it also helped her understand the relevance of not being silent over abuse and how as a journalist she can report and deal with stories that have to do with abuses.
“This training is very important for us as journalists because for me personally, it has shaped my understanding of the fact that men can as well be disadvantaged and abused by women. Just that many are ashamed of speaking out about those abuses; and also the fact that GBV is not limited to physical abuse but psychological, and emotional as well, which is more dangerous,” she said.
She added that from now on she was going to be making her programs and reports inclusive of both men and women’s plight of GBV and will encourage both men and women to speak up about possible abuses.
The training which targeted 25 journalists was held on the 21st and 22nd of October this years at the conference hall of the Council of Churches Sierra Leone (CCSL) in Freetown.
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