By: Mohamed Sahr
With regards to making a difference towards protecting women from being marginalized and biased during the opening of the Sixth Parliament of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Parliamentary Press Gallery has held training on gender-sensitive reporting with support from Westminster Foundation for Democracy on Wednesday 14th June 2023 at the Parliament building.
Offering a remark on the relevance of the training, Rev. Alusine Diamond Suma, Country Representative of Westminster Foundation for Democracy said the responsibility of both the traditional media and the new media should be on profiling and promotion of gender-sensitive issues; adding that gender equity should also be the prerequisite, especially for the media outlets who focus on parliamentary reporting.
‘’The duty of the Parliamentary Press Gallery is to promote gender perception and the need of reporting issues relating to gender,’’ Rev. Suma said.
He urged the reporters to inform the public on gender-sensitive matters in a fair and unbiased way so that the women in parliament would be better placed inasmuch as the Gender Equality and Empowerment Bill has been enforced. He expressed optimism that the press would take full advantage of the Bill by knowing it in detail.
Rev. Vincent Jabbie Momoh, President of the Parliamentary Press Gallery felt overwhelmed by having an informed training opportunity for parliamentary reporters in order to enhance their level of knowledge when focusing on gender-sensitive issues. He said the training would provide a wider space for them to crave their niche when dealing with media being the channel for women’s voices in parliament. He mentioned that the enactment of the Gender Equity and Empowerment Act (GEWE) created a platform for women in parliament to be fully active as well as involved in crucial debates.
Rev. Momoh said the Act has prepared them to be more focused on reporting gender-sensitive issues. ‘’The role of the training is to enhance capacity building for the reporters,’’ President Momoh said.
Theo Harding, President of the Sierra Leone Editor’s Guild implored the reporters to always provide balanced and unbiased stories on women in parliament as it serves as their responsibility of them. He said journalists should not necessarily cast themselves in doing Public Relations aspect but focus on shining their area of speciality particularly when reporting on parliamentary matters.