Published: 3 October 2013
Region: Worldwide
The Media Diversity Institute (MDI) has become UNESCO’s partner for the ‘Global Forum on Media and Gender’, which aims to reduce gender inequalities in media. MDI together with UNESCO and other leaders and decision-makers in media, civil society, governments and human rights organisations, will globally cooperate to add momentum to gender equality and to empower women in and through media.
“The role of media and individuals is crucial. The equality starts at home, and should be encouraged by education and definitely through and in the media. This puts a huge responsibility on media industry,” said Milica Pesic MDI Executive Director in her message to UNESCO’s Global Forum.
During the event, the participants will debate and address several issues such as gender-sensitive policies and strategies in media, safety of women journalists online and offline and media and information literacy and gender. The event will take place on 2-4 December in Bangkok, Thailand.
MDI, as UNESCO partner in Global Forum on Media and Gender, strongly believes this global alliance will uplift current efforts to bring gender balance not only to the newsroom, but to the higher echelons of the media outlets as well as to the media content which right now heavily portrays men as the main source of information whatever the story is about.
“Gender-based discrimination and the denial of the rights of women and girls, remains the single most widespread driver of inequalities in today’s world,” stated an UN’s study. This inequality is a fact as the Global Media Monitoring Project reported that “only 24% of the people questioned, heard, seen, or read about in the written and audio-visual media are women and 46% of news stories reinforce gender stereotypes.”
This global forum is part of a broader plan, being the main aim to set up a Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMG).