The Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media will be presented by Krishanthi Rondon-Fuentes, Chief of the Executive Office, UNESCO Communication and Information Sector.
This gives rise to such questions as: How media institutions can effectively assess their gender sensitive responsiveness and how civil society can, in turn, evaluate this responsiveness?
They will contribute to inform UNESCO's decision to support the development of gender sensitive indicators to be used by media organizations and civil society and will be featured on the Women Make the News 2010 website.
Under the theme "Towards Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media: Best Practices for Gender Perspective in Media and in Media Content", WMN 2010 is intended to initiate a global exchange on the importance and the need for gender sensitive indicators for media organizations.
Although policy frameworks and strategic targets for the enhancement of women's careers in media have been shown to produce positive results in a number of settings, the increasingly global and commercial structures of media institutions do not sit easily with the adoption of gender sensitive measures.
At the request of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), UNESCO is currently assisting in the development of a comprehensive leadership training programme that aims to build the capacities of senior officials to implement and manage policies that are gender sensitive and inclusive and that assure equitable access to education.
The relevance of sustained training, the promotion of women's leadership and a gender-sensitive work environment, the establishment of well defined, monitored and evaluated gender policies and programmes in media houses, journalist unions and professional associations were also stressed, along with fostering a portrayal of women by the media that avoids stereotyping.
The opening session was also the occasion to launch the Chinese translation of the Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Media (GSIM) and of the handbook Getting the Balance Right: Gender Equality in Journalism.
Local-level gender-sensitive interventions are often delayed or blocked by lack of political will and resources.
In Kenya and Lesotho, the Varkey GEMS Foundation works with UNESCO on gender-sensitive teacher training to encourage more girls to attend school and learn science and mathematics.
The two-day workshop included sessions and case sharing on women and the media from an occupational perspective, and on professionally producing gender-balanced and gender-sensitive news and contents.
Most recently, UNESCO has promoted gender-sensitive approaches to literacy research, engaged in innovative new partnerships with the private sector and focused on the integration of girls into national technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programmes.
The workshop covered various key topics such as a review of elections and democracy practices in Egypt and Lebanon in comparison with Jordan, Jordan election laws vis-a-vis international standards, elections from a gender-sensitive perspective, and guidelines to independent and professional elections coverage.
The translations will be further used in the coming months during the IPDC project implementation, which envisages a 6-month observatory exercise to monitor news reporting and programmes from a gender-sensitive perspective, based on applying GSIM, in collaboration and partnership with media organizations and professionals.
The subject is often complicated by the sensitive subject of traditional gender roles.
Male judges are often not "sensitive towards crimes against women and are biased towards the male gender when hearing a woman's plea", said senior advocate Bharati Mutsuddi.
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