Keep women in newsrooms, media houses urged

Robin Muchetu Senior Reporter
MEDIA houses have been encouraged to formulate and implement effective gender policies as a way of curbing sexual harassment of female journalists and to ensure they remain in newsrooms longer. This was said by the acting director for the International Federation of Journalists, Miss Jane Worthington, from Australia during a safety training course on gender equity and media safety with journalists in Bulawayo last week.

“Media houses need to have functional gender policies that address issues of sexual harassment that are occurring in newsrooms. If the policies are implemented then perpetrators of the crimes will be brought to book and there will be significant change,” she said.

Miss Worthngton said it was folly not to have gender policies in an environment where female and also male journalists were being abused regularly with cases going unreported.
Journalists who attended the training workshop said abuse of female journalists was not starting in the newsrooms but from the training institutions.

“The young girls are being abused from the colleges where they train, they offer sexual favours to their lecturers so that they pass and this is a terrible thing because the trainers are abusing the desperate students who want to complete their education and find employment,” said Miss Annastacia Ndlovu, a freelance journalist.

Another senior journalist Ms Pamela Shumba said there was an inferior tag that is attached to female journalists in newsrooms such that they are looked down upon.
“Women generally are not taken seriously in newsrooms such that they are given the less influential beats compared to their male counterparts. The male journalists then feel they have more power over them and this is demoralising,” she said.

Ms Shumba said female journalists have to be accommodated and be given a chance to prove their worth instead of being labelled lazy and incapable.
With regards to sexual harassment she said it was occurring in some newsrooms but going unreported.

“Sexual harassment is occurring in some places but often unreported because there is no proper orientation when one is an intern or gets employed. No one really tells these girls where to go when they are violated such that they do not report when there is a problem,” she said.

During the training female journalists were encouraged to speak out because remaining silent will worsen the problem.
Media houses were also encouraged to have focal persons that aggrieved persons can approach and tell them of their challenges and then take if forward with the responsible authorities.

Zimbabwe Union of Journalists secretary-general Mr Foster Dongozi said journalists should know that the newsroom is not a hunting ground.
“The newsroom is not a hunting ground for girlfriends or boyfriends, people should go with the intention to learn and work not necessarily to find soul mates. Some marriages have come out of the newsrooms and we do not shun that but people must not view it as a hunting ground,” he said.