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Mrs. Laurence Sautier, Agnès Kraidy and Bernadette Bah during the conference (photo: Yacouba Soro/US Embassy) |
Ivoirian Journalists Pledge to Project a Positive Image of Women in Politics
Ivoirian female journalists have pledged to support female politicians, who have been struggling to increase their representation in politics. The pledge was made as 30 journalists gathered on March 7, 2007 at the US Embassy in Abidjan to discuss “The Role of Female Journalists in Promoting Women’s Leadership in Côte d’Ivoire.”
The roundtable discussion was organized by the US Embassy in partnership with RéFJCI – a network of professional Ivoirian female journalists – to mark the celebration of International Women’s Day. The forum was designed to find ways to enable journalists to project a positive image of women in politics.
Aware that women’s involvement in politics is an engine to reinforce democracy, the Ivoirian female journalists committed themselves to devoting a large part of their stories and programs to boost women’s capacity to do politics. The President of RéFJCI, Agnès Kraidy, told the gathering that, “The task of every female journalist now is to eliminate the disparities between men and women through their writing.”
In a bid to achieve their objective, participants at the roundtable have set up a steering committee, which has been tasked to elaborate a draft document that will contain guidelines on how to improve the image of women in the media. As part of International Women’s Day, RéFJCI asked some public and private media outlets in Côte d’Ivoire to devote special columns to issues affecting women. The stories, which are written by female journalists, focus on girls’ education, campaigns against sexual violence, etc.
Created on July 15, 2007 with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan, RéFJCI is a women journalists’ advocacy group whose objective is to promote training for female journalists and to campaign for equal representation of both women and men in the media sphere.
