By Anthony Adongo Apubeo, GNA Special Correspondent from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, Aug 4, GNA – About 57 media practitioners from 17 West, Central and Northern African countries have been trained on sensitive reporting to scale up efforts to eliminate harmful traditional practices and promote inclusive and sustainable development.
The objective of the training was to boost the capacities of the media practitioners to work with stakeholders to accelerate actions to eliminate harmful practices particularly child marriage and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and help the Continent to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The three-day training was the second of the series after the first batch of training which included 38 journalists from 12 East and Southern African countries, held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2022.
The training was organised by the African Union Commission (AUC) in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Plan International and Global Media Campaign to End FGM (GMC).
The journalists were taken through the strategic interventions and campaigns being implemented by the African Union in collaboration with agencies of the United Nations such as UNFPA and UNICEF to end harmful practices and how to report sensitively on issues affecting girls, women and children.
Madam Angela Martins, the Acting Director of the Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development of the AUC, said despite the adoption of interventions and campaigns by most member states of the African Union to end child marriage and FGM, the progress in reducing the absolute number of affected girls and women had been slower than anticipated.
She said limitation of knowledge, information and communication particularly in rural and underserved areas had over the years been identified as hindrance to the effectiveness of these efforts to combat the harmful practices.
“Additionally, the lack of accountability and enforcement of nationally agreed upon policies at the grassroot level has impeded our path to change”, she said, adding, “in light of this, we must harness the power of the media to end FGM and child marriage”.
Madam Martins revealed that it was estimated that over 50 million girls were at risk of FGM by 2030 while more than 120 million girls maybe forced into child marriage within the same period.
These projections, she lamented, were alarming and deserved urgent attention and called on the media fraternity to support to accelerate efforts to ensure zero harmful practices including gender-based violence to allow girls and women to live in dignity.
She explained that the African Union believed that through the media countries and areas where harmful practices particularly child marriage and FGM were prevalent, relevant stakeholders would be engaged and sensitised to change behaviours to help eliminate such practices that affect girls and women on the continent.
She said, “media plays a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and driving social and developmental change, therefore, it is incumbent upon us to explore and amplify the strategic actions of media practitioners in addressing these pressing issues”.
Ms Nena Thundu, Coordinator, Ending Harmful Practices Unit of the AUC, urged the journalists to lead the campaign against harmful practices especially abuses against children and work with appropriate stakeholders at the national and community levels to break the barriers.
Ms Success Babra, the Communications Officer of the African Union International for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa (AU CIEFFA), noted that the education of women and girls continued to be jeopardised due to child marriage and FGM and many more were still at risk.
She therefore underscored the urgent need for journalists, to see the call to support elimination of harmful practices as personal contribution to the development of women and girls across their respective nations.
GNA