Bridget Chiedu Onochie, The Guardian, Abuja
THOUGH interests of womenfolk are beginning to gain attention in the media, journalists are being urged to do in the areas of advocacy and awareness campaign. But since no one gives what he or she does not have; Ipas, a non-governmental organization that focuses on women’s sexual and reproductive rights organizes regular capacity building programmes for journalists to hone their skills.
At the four-day event held two weeks ago in Owerri, Imo State, a total of 28 journalists drawn from both public and private establishments participated in the capacity building exercise.
The organization said that about 432 journalists have so far benefited from its training programme.
The Country Director, Ipas-Nigeria, Dr. Ejike Oji, said one of the objectives of the NGO was to conscientize media practitioners and make them advocates for women’s rights and health. He stated that the fact that unsafe abortions account for high rate of maternal mortality, infertility in women and infections in the country, was enough reason to engage the media in an aggressive campaign.
According to him, the campaign should not only emphasise the need for the passage of national health bill and other relevant bills, but women should also be made to understand their reproductive health.
He added that in the course of their regular programmes, journalists’ attention is equally redirected towards bills pending at the National Assembly including the National Health Bill and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Bill 2011.
The programme exposed participants to various health-related cases resulting from infringement on women’s rights, obsolete legislative framework, harmful traditional practices as well as religious beliefs.
Resource persons recounted instances, where denial of girls or women’s choice to reproductive rights, have resulted in loss of lives or post abortion complications.
Dr. Oji regretted that Nigeria has the second highest maternal mortality rate globally. According to him, majority of the cases would have been prevented if the reformed health bill has become an act and if other laws that are lopsided against the women are modified.
He however commended the media for better understanding and increase in the reportage of cases of violence against women.
To Dr. Oji, media handling of the bill in their reports might be a test case for them. He sees headway for the bill if the media has full knowledge of the contents of the bill and serves as arbiter between the general public and the National Assembly.
“I believed there is headway for the bill but the only challenge is the people referring to it as ‘Abortion Bill’. There is no abortion in that bill. That is where the media comes in again; they should fully show what the bill contains for the world to see so that people who are trying to be mischievous by calling it ‘Abortion Bill’ would be silenced.”
Oji added that so long as the law does not provide for easy access to justice by women, who are violated or assaulted regularly, the incessant reported cases of rape, battering and other forms of violence against women would remain on the increase.
“When it is difficult to get assailants who have assaulted women violently, when the law is not made in such a way that it is possible for women to get justice and remedy, then, it is a porous kind of law. But this new bill on prohibition of violent against persons, will make it easier to prove rape cases and other cases of sexual violence and seek to provide remedy for the assaulted person.”
Mr. Charles Ozoemena has attended several editions of Ipas training programme and concluded that the workshop has succeeded in exposing the degree of injustice that Nigerian woman faces, not by her fault, “but because the society has chosen to be very unkind to her health issues and survival. She deserves her rights but is it given to her in totality comparatively to those of the men?
“There is a wide range of discrimination against women. Nigerian woman is like a person chained by cultural practices, religion and the bias that men often apply in the area of even beating women up and denying them of their rights.”
As a journalist, he said the training drew support from the media towards reforming existing laws as well as changing societal attitude towards women, who have been in bondage when examined critically from her rights.
Martin Obiora Ilo of DAAR Communications Plc. described the programme as educative and eye-opening, having brought some of the challenges confronting Nigerian women to full glare.
“What shocked me is the fact that the society says it is against abortion, the high and mighty say they hate abortion but they are the ones that get the abortion because they can afford it in whatever hospital and then, we are left with those poor ones. They already have the challenge of poverty, challenge of disease, challenge of food and shelter, then, added to this unsafe abortion and consequences. A lot of families lose young girls, others lose wives just because these facilities, laws or environment for people to say ‘let us do it this way because people are suffering’ are not there. As journalists, we have a lot to leverage from this exposure”, Ilo said.
Barrister Okey-Ehiezi Anwuli is elated that she would be returning to the court with an understanding that certain laws need modification and urgently too, to save a lot of women from dying.
But the workshop did not only focus on women’s interests, participants also benefited from information communication technology experts.
Other programmes and activities included adult learning skill, Maslow’s law of hierarchy of needs, media networking as well as the impact of social network on the media. Participants also visited the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, where doctors on duty attested to high rate of unsafe abortion cases.
Published in The Guardian of Monday, February 25, 2013