Media Release
21 April 2008
Women Journalists Demand Access to Leadership Positions in Arab Unions
Women journalists from the Arab World and Iran launched a campaign for female leadership in journalists’ unions in the Arab World and Iran at a regional meeting in Tunis on 17-19th April.
While recognizing achievements made in some countries, the meeting further deplored the failure of journalists unions to elect women to their governing bodies. Today, the share of women in union’s leadership varies from 0% in Algeria, Lebanon and Palestine to 33% in Tunisia and 26% in Morocco.
“Journalists unions need to recruit more women, to make it easier for women activists to participate in union business and to mainstream gender equality into union policies and actions”, said Pamela Moriniere, IFJ Gender Equality officer. “This meeting showed the strength of demand for change. It is time for the unions to respond.”
The seminar ran a series of discussions on gender equality in the region and several workshops on women empowerment in the union.
The seminar concluded with the adoption of recommendations launching a campaign on “Women partners in trade union leadership” in the region. The campaign is based on an eight- point action plan encouraging women journalists to engage in trade-union work and decision making bodies in the unions through training, networking, communication campaigns and lobbying.
“Ambition and solidarity are keys for strengthening women’s access to leading position”, said Sarah Bouchetob, IFJ officer for the Arab world. “We hope that this seminar will have a decisive impact on upcoming unions’ elections in Palestine, Jordan and Yemen”.
The seminar was jointly organized by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Syndicat National des Journalistes Tunisiens (SNJT) and gathered 16 journalists representing 11 countries in the region.
To read the Recommendations, click here.
For more information contact the IFJ at + 32 2 235 2207
The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 120 countries worldwide
lundi 21 avril 2008
dimanche 20 avril 2008
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