Kathmandu, Oct 17 : The participants in today’s national workshop on review of Beijing +25 organized by the National Network for Beijing +25 Review have univocally pressed for making the private and government media houses more inclusive in terms of content and participation.
The media persons have also stressed on the need for the media houses in the country to implement zero-tolerance against gender-based violence and discrimination to make the media houses gender-friendly.
On the occasion Federation of Nepalis Journalists (FNJ) President Govinda Acharya said that the FNJ had been making efforts to ensure inclusive participations of women, Dalit, indigenous and backward community in every media houses.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995 was developed at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing which calls for taking action in 12 key areas such as poverty, education and training, media, environment and the girl child among others to promote women empowerment.
Acknowledging the role of media for advancing the cause of women, the Declaration urges increasing participation of women in media and at decision-making level.
Similarly, Sancharika Samuha’s President Nitu Pandey argued that the government should take the initiatives to adopt a special strategy to encourage media houses for increasing participation of women in media.
Of the total 13,050 journalists registered in FNJ, 18 per cent of them are women.
A study conducted by Sancharika Samuha in 2014 showed that women media persons constituted 25 per cent of the total working journalists across the country. Among them, only 2.9 per cent of the women were working as a Bureau Chief while 29.3 per cent were working as a reporter.
In Nepal, there are 51 television in operation while 672 FMs were on air. Similarly, 953 papers were being published regularly while 1,380 online news portals were registered with the Nepal Press Council.
The two-day workshop will that kicked off today will deliberate on issues such as ‘women and environment’, ‘women and economy’, ‘women and education and training’.
