The International Federation of Journalists
(IFJ) and its partner the Journalist Trade Union (JuHi) committed to
campaigning for equal rights for women journalists launch today the to
encourage women journalists in Azerbaijan to engage in trade-union work through
training, networking, communication campaigns and lobbying and stand for
election to the decision-making bodies.
The leaflet recommends the following:
1. Increasing the rate of representation of
women in unions' leadership positions and considering the introduction of quota
systems
2. Developing trade union work capabilities for
women through training
3. Involving male colleagues in all gender
equality related issues
4. Strengthening trade-union policies
protecting women's trade-union rights
5. Ensuring the safety of women journalists and
trade-unionists in conflict areas
6. Protecting women journalists against
violence and harassment at work
7. Inserting gender equality provisions in
collective bargaining agreements.
8. Encouraging women's solidarity to strengthen
their role in the union.
The
publication contains a section on the current situation of women journalists in
Azerbaijani media. The conclusions of the survey showed that female journalists
count for:
-
40-45 % of employees of national broadcasting TV stations
-
25-30 % of employees of regional TV stations
-
30-35 % of employees of national distributed newspapers
-
20-25 % of employees of regional newspapers
Despite
this fact, women representation in decision making bodies remains very low.
Only 10 women of all the editorial-offices surveyed were represented at the
decision making level. Out of the most 15 famous journalist organisations, only
one of these organisations leaders is a woman.
Another
section of the leaflet details specifically the Gender Law in Azerbaijan Republic
and the international conventions ratified by the Azerbaijani Republic while a special
section of the leaflet gathers interviews conducted with famous Azerbaijani
women journalists including Vusala Mahirgizi, head of APA information agency
and APA Holding, Sevil Yusifova, head of the Association of Women Journalists,
Aynur Elgunesh, chief-editor of Var.az news portal, head of press service of
the Baku Journalism School, Sevinj Seyidova, chief-editor of the Hafta-ichi
newspaper, Ganira Pashayeva, a former assistant of the chief-editor of the ANS
TV between 1998-2005 before becoming a member of parliament.
Finally, information and selected advices from the IFJ “Getting the
Balance Right” handbook were included to encourage best-practice.
The
“Gender issue in Azerbaijani media” leaflet consists of 43 pages and was produced within
the framework of the “Ethical Journalism Initiative-Azerbaijan” project which is implemented by the
International Federation of Journalists together with the “Coalition for Freedom
of Speech and Journalist Professionalism”. The coalition is composed of the Azerbaijan
Journalists Trade Union, the International Eurasia Press Fund, the Journalists
Democratic League, and the “Ruh” Committee on Protection of Journalists’
Rights. The “EJI–Azerbaijan” is a two-year project supported by the Delegation
of the European Commission to Azerbaijan and the LO-TCO.
The gender
leaflet is available for download at http://ejiaz.org/yeni.pdf. The book
leaflet is only available in Azerbaijani. For further information about this
news release, please contact Mushfig Alasgarli, e-mail: [email protected], telephone +994 50 324 65
30 project coordinator, or IFJ project officer Adrien Collin, e-mail: [email protected], telephone +32 2
235 22 03
More
information about the Ethical Journalism Initiative-Azerbaijan project: http://www.ejiaz.org/