On February 3, 2010 UNFPA’s Combating Gender Based Violence in Azerbaijan Project has organized a round table with participation of NGOs operating in the filed of gender and journalists specializing in gender issues as a follow-up to the December 2009 training. The partners of the CGBV Project and participants of the three days training course on “Media coverage of gender based violence: principles and standards” held in December 2009 attended the meeting devoted to strengthening the NGO-mass media cooperation.
The invitees shared their opinions on gender and GBV coverage in media, the level of awareness of journalists regarding the issue, reasons due to which media organizations allocate little attention to gender problems, collaboration between NGOs specializing in gender issues and journalists, lack of gender experts who can provide journalists with useful and relevant information and so on.
Touching upon the relations between mass media and NGOs Matanat Aziziova, chairwoman of the Woman Crisis Center said that poor cooperative links between NGOs and media representatives is caused by the omissions on both sides. “Journalists want to get comprehensive information and as much as possible opinions on the issue. However, in the majority of cases NGOs are not able to properly address this demand. On the other hand, in several cases, we meet inexperienced journalists that seek to get any news, however do not know what to ask, as they do not possess any background information on the topic”, Azizova said.
Aynur Elgunesh, a free-lance journalist emphasized that journalists cannot find qualified gender specialists while reporting on gender, gender based violence (GBV), violence against women (VAW), domestic violence (DV) etc. “I know only few NGOs and experts operating in this filed. Therefore I have to work with the same gender experts each time. NGOs are always dissatisfied with the low level of awareness on the work they do. However, they do not provide us with information regarding the implemented projects and activities, they think that what they do is intended for the donor only and of no interest to the local public,” she added.
At the end of the round table the representative of the CGBV Project reminded that establishment and maintenance of good working relations with media was among the main project components. Therefore, the Project CU would keep on its efforts on increasing gender awareness and gender sensitivity of journalists’ reporting on gender issues and attracting media’s attention to the gender and GBV problems in Azerbaijan.
