Eniola Yekini
The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) in collaboration with the Norwegian Union of Journalists (Norsk Journalistlag), have engaged women journalists in Ekiti state on a three-day national capacity-building programme .
The training which came up at Dr Tai Oguntayo hall,at the Nigeria Union of journalists,NUJ secretatiat,Ado-Ekiti ,focused on gender equity, safety and gender-sensitive reporting with the objective of combating sexual harassment, intimidation, among others.
No fewer than 30 Journalists, including male participated at the three-day event that comes up between Tuesday January 27- Thursday January 29.
The workshop, which is part of a long-running partnership spanning more than a decade, is aimed at strengthening women journalists’ professional skills while addressing the growing concerns around safety, workplace discrimination and gender-based challenges within newsrooms.
Speaking on the significance of the programme, former NAWOJ Vice President, Zone D, Veronica Ogbole, said :”the initiative evolved from a focus on gender-sensitive reporting to confronting the realities women journalists face in the course of their work.”
According to her, global journalism bodies discovered that issues female journalists routinely report such as sexual harassment, intimidation and workplace violence are also prevalent within media organisations.
She noted that: ” this led to the development of a training manual to help women journalists identify, report and respond to challenges affecting them directly, including discriminatory assignment practices and the struggle to balance professional responsibilities with family life.
“This program has been on for more than 10 years. First of all, it was gender-sensitive reporting and then the International Federation of Journalists now discovered that all the things female journalists are reporting, be it violence, sexual harassment, intimidation, are also happening to us in the newsroom.
“So that’s why they now designed a manual so that they can train women journalists to bring out issues that also affect them and then bring out solutions of how they can deal with these issues, be it sexual harassment, intimidation”.
On her part, former National President of NAWOJ, Ifeyinwa Omowole, stressed the importance of safety consciousness in journalism practice, noting that passion for the profession should not come at the expense of personal security.
She added that the training equipped women journalists with practical steps to protect themselves from violence, harm and negative consequences in hostile reporting environments.
“My charge is that as we report and write about other people, we also have to think of the safety of ourselves. We are only alive to break the next breaking news. It’s only so that you yourself will not become a breaking news.
“That’s why the Norwegian Union of Journalists is sponsoring this so that journalists, especially women, you know sometimes women, we are very zealous. We put passion into everything, there are certain steps you should take to safeguard yourselves even from violence, even from hurt, even from negative effects in our communities and environments where we write”. She added
Declaring the workshop open, the Ekiti State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Olapeju Babafemi commended NAWOJ for adopting collaboration as a contemporary development strategy through its partnership with international organisations.
The Commissioner described gender-sensitive reporting as critical to national development, noting that viewing issues through a gender lens enhances balanced storytelling and social inclusion.
She equally expressed confidence that participants would emerge and be better equipped to contribute meaningfully to the media landscape.
In her remarks, The NAWOJ National Chairperson,Hajiya Aisha Ibrahim,represented by Ekiti NAWOJ Chairperson, Adewumi Ademiju, urged participants “to maximise the opportunity provided by the workshop and apply the knowledge gained to their daily professional practice, while also praising the trainers for their role in sharpening the skills of women journalists nationwide.”
The Chairman Ekiti State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Comrade Kayode Babatuyi lauded NAWOJ on the initiative. He described the collaboration as “a meaningful Partnership that would improve skills and knowledge of all journalists in gender reportage”.