Cooperation launched between UN Women and the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics
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The ethical coverage of women’s rights and gender equality plays a special role in shaping sound public opinion and in awareness-raising. UN Women has been actively cooperating with the Georgian media for years, offering them various trainings and workshops on gender-sensitive reporting.
This experience laid the foundation for concluding a Memorandum of Understanding with the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, signed on 17 November by Kaori Ishikawa, UN Women Country Representative in Georgia, and Mariam Gogosashvili, Director of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. As a result, the work of UN Women, which focuses on the support and development of the local media, will be based on even more systemic and specific guidelines.
The cooperation between UN Women and the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics aims at building the capacity of the Georgian media in the area of gender-sensitive and ethical coverage to establish guidelines and self-regulatory standards on the sensitive and ethical coverage of gender-based violence and LGBTQI issues as well as on enforcement mechanisms in order to encourage the professional, ethical and gender-sensitive coverage of gender equality issues.
“UN Women supports Charter in improving the skills of media representatives in Georgia. Gender-sensitive reporting should be considered a key principle of professional media production, similar to values of accuracy and balance”, noted Ms. Kaori Ishikawa, UN Women Country Representative in Georgia.
“Within the scope of the cooperation between UN Women and the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, we will intensify our work on the ethical coverage of gender-based violence and LGBTQI issues and will promote the fair, accurate, non-stereotypical and balanced representation of women, gender and sexual orientation in the media,” says Ms. Gogosashvili.
Within the framework of the MoU, UN Women will assist the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics in developing the guidelines and self-regulatory standards for gender-sensitive coverage of events and women’s rights, as well as in developing the respective training module to train media representatives and upgrade their skills. In addition, there will be an annual prize introduced for journalists in order to recognize their contribution in promoting women’s rights and gender equality. It is noteworthy that the first winner will receive this award at the end of the year.
Cooperation between UN Women and the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics is a part of the EU-supported project “Ending Violence against Women and Girls in Georgia”, implemented by UN Women and UNFPA.