The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has today reaffirmed its commitment to support the UN Women Campaign to End Violence Against Women in Africa.

“The campaign against gender based violence is at the heart of our role in gender mainstreaming in the societies that we belong to,” said Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Director,. “We will contribute  resources to gear  our gender programmes towards addressing the campaign to end violence against women.”

The Campaign ‘UNiTE to End Violence Against Women’ was launched in 2008 by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, calling on governments, civil societies, private sector, media, and the UN system to combat violence against women and girls. The Campaign is an inter-agency initiative bringing on board about 14 UN agencies coordinated by UN Women and UNFPA.

The Africa UNiTE Campaign was launched in 2010 under the auspices of the African Union and the UN Economic Community for Africa (ECA). The IFJ and the FAJ joined the campaign  and agreed to support the Africa UNiTE Campaign to End Violence Against Women and Girls during the All Africa Conference on Media and Gender in August 2011 in Kigali, Rwanda.

“Our interest is very clear; violence against women is endangering the safety of women journalists and gender mainstreaming is our top priory both in the media industry and in our communities,” said Omar Faruk Osman, President of FAJ. “We call on FAJ members and working journalists to give attention to the Africa UNiTE Campaign as it will leverage the contribution of female populations on development in Africa.”

The continental steering committee meeting of the Africa UNiTE Campaign meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, at the ECOWAS headquarters is organised by the Africa UNiTE Secretariat and ECOWAS Commission and gathers representatives of UN agencies , regional economic communities, governments, and civil society organisations to deliberate on the mid-term progress of the Africa UNiTE Campaign that is supposed to end in 2015.

Mr Baglo, who represented FAJ in this regional Steering Committee meeting, stressed the total commitment of the pan-African journalist federation in tackling the violence against women in Africa.

For more information contact the IFJ: 221 33 867 95 86/87

The IFJ represents more than 600.000 journalists in 134 countries