Focus more on women for disaster reporting: speakers
Speakers at a webinar yesterday discussed the role of media in promoting gender-responsive disaster management and resilience building, as women and girls remain invisible in disaster reporting of both electronic and print media.
Titled, "Where are the women? Media Coverage of Disasters", the webinar was co-hosted by the Department of Women Affairs and UN Women, in observance of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2020.
Shoko Ishikawa, country representative of UN Women, the co-chair of the event said, media has immense power to influence and therefore shape opinions in the understanding of people as well as policymakers on various issues, including disaster management.
"We know how media reports on disasters mobilise government and donor funding to swing into action after a disaster. If those reports focus on the plight of women, girls and gender diverse population, and their specific needs during and after disasters, that would go a long way in making disaster management and resilience building of gender response," she said.
"Media can therefore play an effective and critical role in mobilising all our collective strength, to create enabling environment for women, challenging preexisting inequalities, norms and stereotypes," she added.
Shoko Ishikawa said she believes that the global coronavirus pandemic is a wake-up call to build a more equal and inclusive society.
Sejuti Masud of BBC Media Action shared the results achieved by National Resilience Programme (NRP), supported by UNDP, UNOPS and UN Women, together with Department of Women Affairs, that have been working with 55 local journalists and 20 national-level editorial gatekeepers, and have seen positive results.
"In a disaster, women are not included enough in the media content and reporters often face difficulties to reach women due to social and religious barriers. Media doesn't always treat women as an equal voice like men and are often portrayed only from pity," she said in her presentation.
Farida Yeasmin, general secretary of Jatiya Press Club, said women are not focused as a centre point in disaster reporting, even though women manage everything of a family in a disaster, and for this, there must be more training for journalists.
Besides, the news reports on disaster are prepared based on how the central leaders direct the local journalists. The change of mindset and gender-sensitive training is important for central news leaders too so that they give proper direction to the district journalists for in-depth report about women's vulnerabilities in disaster, she added.
Angur Nahar Monty, coordinator of Bangladesh Women Journalist Network, said the number of female journalists is still less in Bangladesh, and so is the scope of capacity building since there is a lack of opportunity and disinterest in availing the opportunity.
According to Monty, from last March, the network has been working on capacity building and identifying the challenges and creating a network with different organisations. "We have worked with British High Commission, British Council for their English language development and ICRC on first aid training," she added.
Farzana Rupa, senior correspondent of Ekattor TV, said the policymakers must keep in mind the issues of women in infrastructure development, including buildings, roads and shelters. At the same time, there must be more focus on humanitarian development.
The event was co-chaired by Parveen Akhter, director-general, Department of Women Affairs, and moderated by Dilruba Haider of UN Women.
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