Platform for Action supports press freedom

Platform for Action supports press freedom

BEIJING (JP): Women journalists are hopeful that the Platform
for Action to be adopted by the United Nations' Fourth World
Conference on Women today will help them in their efforts to
achieve and preserve freedom of expression.

"The Beijing document is strategic for women and the
media...because (it covers issues such as) the need for training
for women in the profession, for access to information, the need
to establish alternative networks," senior journalist Anne S.
Walker told a special panel discussion on women and the media
held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) at the conference yesterday.

The discussion was opened by Aida de Fishman, who represents
Costa Rica on UNESCO's executive board.

Anne S. Walker, Annie de Wiest and about 130 other media
professionals played an instrumental role in the March adoption
of the Toronto Platform for Action, which calls for action to
ensure women's access to expression in and through the media.

The Toronto document outlines strategies for media
enterprises, professional associations, educational and media
training institutions and governments to encourage women's
representation and leadership in the media.

Among the "specific and immediate actions" recommended in the
Toronto document is the promotion of equal opportunity programs
to ensure equal access by women and men to expression and
decision-making.

It also calls for training in new technologies, the
preparation of guidelines for non-discriminatory reporting and
the monitoring and denunciation of attacks on media
professionals.

The document has also reportedly been helpful to the UN
Commission on the Status of Women in finalizing the draft text
Beijing conference's Platform for Action. The section of the
draft on the issue of women and media has been one of the least
contentious at the conference.

The draft Platform for Action "takes into account two
fundamental demands of the media professionals, namely the
respect for freedom of expression and the principle of non-
intervention of governments in professional matters, thus
encouraging self-regulation," UNESCO Director General Federico
Mayor said in a statement yesterday.

"Media issues are for the first time prominently on the agenda
of a conference on women," Mayor said. "Therefore, the
international community recognizes not only the place of the
media in our societies and its...role in shaping opinions and
attitudes toward women and gender issues, but also its potential
to (contribute) to the advancement of women worldwide."

Walker said that the Beijing document would help stop the
media exploiting women as sex objects.

De Wiest, however, lamented the lack of coverage, in the
general media, of women's issues. That situation needs to be
addressed soon, she said. She suggested several long-term
solutions to the problem, including the establishment of more
media. "The obstacles, certainly, are funds and censorship
imposed on the media," she said.

She also suggested that female media professionals establish
wider networks among themselves.

The draft Platform for Action states that governments should
"aim at gender balance in the appointment of women and men to all
advisory, management, regulatory or monitoring bodies, including
those connected to the private and State or public media".

In 1994 UNESCO organized regional workshops on women and the
media in West Samoa, Cuba, Malaysia, Ecuador, Bulgaria, Tunisia
and Zimbabwe. (swe)