Spotlight Initiative organises training for Ebonyi journalists on ethical Reporting of gender based violence

By David Uka

With incidence of gender-based violence (GBV) increasing by the day, the United Nations Spotlight Initiative Nigeria, in collaboration with the European Union (EU), the Child Right Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Culture and the implementation partner, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), have organised a four-day media dialogue for journalists in  Ebonyi State on ‘Ethical reporting, media advocacy and solutions journalism to eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls in Nigeria’.

Speaking at the event,  the Joint EU-UN Spotlight Initiative Communications coordinator at UNICEF, Khadijah Ibrahim Nuhu, urged the media to uphold high ethical standard in the reporting gender-based .

She said the media should open up in discussions with the Spotlight Initiative partners and resource persons so that they could  deepen their roles in promoting an end to Violence Against Women and Girls. 

Mrs Nuhu noted that it was important for journalists to move beyond reportage of incidences of violence against women and girls and begin to do investigative journalism, be more intersted in the issue of VAWGs through advocacy and solutions journalism.

She explained the training was to increase participants’ knowledge on ethical reporting of gender-based violence, engage participants on gender inequality discourse and their role in impacting/changing negative social norms and strengthen the Spotlight Initiative (SI) network of media practitioners promoting an end to violence against women and girls.

In his presentation at the workshop on behalf of the European Union, the United Nations Children’s Fund Child Specialist, Victor Atuchukwu  identified weak and poor enforcement of existing FGM laws, weak national and state level FGM response coordination bodies and financial gains as the reason the practice persists in Nigeria.

 

He explained that 2018  National Democratic  Health Survey reveals that FGM among girls age 0-14 was the most common among girls whose mothers we circumcised, have no education and from the lowest wealth quintile.

In her presentation, Barr. Mike Aja-Nwachukwu of Ebonyi state Ministry of Justice lamented increase in cases of violence against women and children in the state and called on media to rise up to the challenge by effectively reporting the cases and following them.

She raised the alarm over increase in child stealing in the state and said that the ministry has recorded over 30 cases.

“Children are being abused and the perpetrators are living in our environment, what are we doing about it as media practitioners? Children are being stolen and mothers suffer it most. What have you done about it as journalists? In our ministry, we have over 30 cases of stolen children, child stealing is on the increase in our state”, she said

The participants, 30 journalists from print and electronic media were drawn from media in  Ebonyi state for the training which held at Channel  View Hotels, Calabar.