National convention of female journalists starts today
Islamabad: Realising the sensitivities of female journalists, the National Press Club is organising a two-day national convention on women journalists starting from today (Saturday).
Around 200 women journalists from all over the country will participate in the convention titled ‘Conference on Gender Discrimination in Media and Capacity Building Sessions for Female Journalists’. Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Firdous Aashiq Awan will be the chief guest on the inaugural day.
The main objective of the conference is to reinforce and strengthen the role of women in the media of Pakistan and to discuss and help to find solutions to the challenges faced by them relating to gender disparity through debate.
The private sector electronic media in Pakistan is thriving at a great speed. The media boom has created space for new and young professionals and consequently there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of female journalists in Pakistan. However, the media industry has so far failed to address the sensitivities of female journalists and has not been able to provide a secure working environment for them.
Despite being capable professionals, female journalists are facing undue discrimination within the industry, making it difficult for them to excel in their profession and hampering the equal dispersion of opportunities. The primary issues being faced by majority of the female journalists are sexual harassment, gender discrimination, lack of training and career growth opportunities, lack of representation in journalist unions and bodies.
It is also important to keep in mind that despite the fact that more female journalists have joined the industry, the overall percentage of women in media is only 5 per cent (statistics mentioned in International Labour Organization-ILO seminar). Whereas according to some local organisation, there are only three per cent women in media. One factor of such worrisome statistics is that nothing specific has been done to retain women journalists in this industry.
The event will include four interactive sessions themed around the challenges faced by women journalists. All four sessions will be organised and conducted by working women journalists from print and electronic media.
Journalist from all over the country have been invited to participate in the convention and discuss their problems in details so that they should be brought into lime light and concrete steps would be taken to over come these challenges.
Source: The News
Date:4/16/2011
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