16 days of activism against gender based violence
This year i, together with the rest of the world commemorate the 16 days of activism against gender based violence with a clear picture of what gender based violence(gbv) is all about. I have never taken part in the commemorations because GBV is something that only happened to other people and not me.
This year however, today i am taken back to a time and a place where i was a victim of GBV. I hate to use the word victim because it makes me sound helpless because i am infact an empowered woman and so i will settle for the term survivor. Yes i have survived it all being the strong black woman that i am. I have survived a nasty beating by my superior in the Herald newsroom and this has just made me stronger.
What this man intended for bad has just turned out to be good because after this violation of my human rights and dignity i have vowed to fight against this form of abuse. There can never be any good memories on being violate in that manner in front of one’s colleagues but hey, i survived it all.
My abuse was not only physical but it was also emotional, not to even mention that it cost me my job. One can always argue that the job did not pay much then but then agin, it was mine and i loved what i did adn still do. The reason i became a journalist was to fight for human rights. This is much more than a career, it is a vocation you are either born one or not.
The issue of commemorating the 16 days of activism against gender based violence is one that all journalists and other human rights activists should take seriously. ÜN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon says that “Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families, and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence — yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned.”
This years theme for the 16 days of Activism Against Genderbased violence is Demanding Implementation: Challenging Obstacles end violence against women. The question is what is the media doing to ensure that this happens?
The media plays a critical role in the sense that we are the custodians of imformation and what we write or broadcast is considered to be the gospel truth. We can really drive this battle for equality and a violence free nation if we can only get past the hurdles in our way.
The fiorst hurdle being that of News. In school we are taught that news is information that has not yet been made public and a closer look at the news will reveal that news is in itself a masculine narrative. We have been taught to look at news in a non gendered context mainly because we have been socialised that it is a man’s world and that news is a man communicating to another man. The million dollar question here is where are the women? Are they not part of the public too? The subjects of news are all a mans domain.
Journalists should move from evnt based journalism which has got no analysis attached to it but should concerntrate their efforts to theme based journalism which gives them room to question issues because at the end of the day, we are all fighting for equality.
Every self respecting journalist should make it ther quest to question some of these things like voter registration, does it cater for pregnant women? Journalism operates on isues of priority and i believe human rights is the number one priority. Women’s rights are human rrights too.
As journalists we are letting the people down by not giving them an indepth analysis of some of the stories we cover, for instance the issue of the land redistribution in Zimbabwe. This process was carried out inorder to foster equittable land ownership pattern but an insignificant number of women beneffitted from the process. Women only made up 15% of the receipents of land. Why was there no gender discourse on the land redistribution.
We are now moving towards elections and many pressure groups and womens organisations are calling for 50/50 participation while still others are saying Women Can Do it. What is our stake in all of this as the media. Should we sit back and let events unfold?
Is it not our responsibility to give objective coverage to aspiring women politicians ?
There is need for media coverage that is objective towards women who want to run for public office. The media has for a long time been insensitive to female politicians and therefore been unfair to them as they often choose to report on what they look like, what they are wearing or what they have done in their private lives instead of focussing on the campaign message and other pertinent issues.
The media has the tendency of turning a deaf ear, and a blind eye of the productive activities of women who eventually get elected for public office. Often female politicians are featured in the media when something in the negative has occurred. For instance, MDCs Trudy Stevenson received a lot of media attention when she was assaulted but very little has been said in the media about her success.
As the media, we should make every effort to bring governemt to accountability because Zimbabwe is a signatory to CEDAW and the SADC gender protocol
