Journalists from 21 nations in the Asia Pacific region, including from Timor-Leste, went to Bangkok to participate in three-days of training about the International Conference on People and Development and gender issues.
The training, held from 11 to 13 September, started with a short introduction from each of the 31 participants before moving into the training materials.
“I know you don’t know each other because there are a lot of new faces, only two people have attended twice, so we need to introduce ourselves,” trainer and facilitator Varaporn Chamsanit said with a smile at the Amari Watergate Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.
The training ran for three days and focused on women’s rights, reproductive health and global development priorities.
In the training program, journalists and editors shared skills and techniques on how to analyze facts, issues and data from a gender perspective. The training focused especially on gender and population development in the mainstream media.
The participants, made up of journalists from newspapers, radio and television, shared experiences about the relevant issues in each nation.
In a heated discussion, some said in their respective nations people did not consider or respect women as equals to men but considered woman powerless.
For example in Myanmar people don’t talk about reproductive health because the issue is considered very sensitive.
“Based on our culture in Myanmar, when we talk about it our parents say oops, don’t talk about it, it’s taboo,” said The Myanmar Times reporter Daw Cherry Thein.
That’s why she was happy to participate in the training and hoped the knowledge from the training could change the mentality of communities in Myanmar through the media.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, as a nation in perpetual conflict, women and young girls have become very vulnerable.
”Sexual violations happen to women everywhere,” said Shakeela Ebrahimkhil, a reporter from Tolo TV, Afghanistan.
As a television reporter in Afghanistan, she said it was a challenge to inform the public that women also have the same rights as men and should be respected as well.
On the final day of the training, trainers and facilitators from UN Women and UNFPA called on the journalists to implement theory from the training in their daily work, particularly on the issues of women’s rights, reproductive health and family planning.
Here the participants also promised they would share materials with their editor or director on how to create a gender balance in the workplace and how to be gender sensitive in the media.
The training closed when Director of the UN Women Regional Office for the Asia Pacific, Roberta Clarke, handed out certificates to the participants.
TDW attended the training thanks to UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
