By Nasratu Kargbo
In an effort to increase women’s participation and knowledge in the use of the digital media, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in partnership with the Media Reform Coordinating Group (MRCG) and the Women in the Media Sierra Leone have concluded the training of the second cohorts of female journalists, bloggers and civil society activists in Sierra Leone on their rights online.
According to officials, the training was first conducted in Sierra Leone in April this year targeting 45 women drawn from the media, bloggers and activists.
Speaking during the training session on the 10th September 2021, one of the Facilitators and Editor of Politico Newspaper Mabinty Magdalene Kamara explained to trainees how social media can be used to improve on businesses, relationships etc. and also spoke on the negatives such as cyber bullying, sexual harassment, cyber stalking and a lot more.
During her presentation, Kamara gave statistics of gender gap online globally which leaves women at 48%, with Africa and the Middle East contributing a larger portion. She attributed this is to poverty, discrimination, violence, lack of privacy amongst many others.
Giving the keynote address, the President of Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) Ahmed Sahid Nasralla said SLAJ was pleased to be part of the workshop and assured female journalists that SLAJ was fully interested in any training that seeks to empower and capacitate women journalists.
He spoke on the advantages of the internet and of how it can be an effective tool to advocate for women’s rights but also warned it can also be “a dangerous space and tool, where women are most likely the subject of online harassment, intimidation, violence and other forms of abuse”.
The President said the training is therefore deemed necessary not just for women to protect themselves online, but to also advocate for women’s rights and issues online.
Programs officer for MFWA Kwaku Krobea Asante spoke on gender digital gap and made a reference to Liberia where women make up a larger part of the population, but with more men on the internet space than women adding that even the women that are on the internet space are mostly abused.
He explained that it is against this backdrop that such training was organized in order for women to learn about online rights, digital literacy, online security and privacy amongst many other things.
He emphasized that there has been a drastic shift from traditional media to social media.He said due to the prominence of social media, radio and Tv stations and even newspapers put their contents online just to get the audiences’ attention. He also spoke of inter-media agenda setting, where something pops up on Facebook, WhatsApp etc. and is brought to the radio, tv etc. for better discussion to derive in-depth knowledge on the issue.
President of Women in the Media Sierra Leone (WIMSAL) Prosper Femi Jarette Coker spoke on the relevance of such training in this era so as to protect women, enrich them with knowledge on how to deal with online abuses, operate the digital space responsibly and on how they can use the internet beneficially.
During the launching of the training, MFWA donated some books to SLAJ on media and good governance in the different West African countries.
The training ended with trainees doing a presentation on identifying different online abuses, how to deal with them and giving real life examples of women who have suffered online abuse one way or the other.
The training targeted forty five female journalists, bloggers and activists. The project according to officials was supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (13/09/21)
