Gender Sensitive Reporting in Southeast Asia

The project aims to create an ongoing collaboration between gender-focused CSOs/NGOs and media institutions in five Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. The project aims to enable CSOs/NGOs and the media to work collaboratively together to produce more transparent, relevant, responsive, and accessible content on gender issues, especially addressing Violence against women and girls (VAWG).

The project will culminate in the production of country-specific action plans, developed with input from participating broadcasters and CSOs/NGOs.

Key project activities include:

• Regional situation report on five countries specifically about how greater media participation can help to bring about changes in social attitudes and gender equity with a focus on violence against women and girls (VAWG)
• Two-day capacity building workshop in Bangkok for gender-focused NGOs and media makers to raise awareness and develop skills on how to combat gender discrimination and gender-based censorship within the media and develop regional action plans
• Two webinars to discuss project objectives and the resulting situation report and action plans

Violence against women is leading to global systemic inequalities. In recent years, there have been some initiatives by women’s groups and media professionals to address the lack of research and guidelines regarding coverage of women in the media and women’s issues. These efforts have started to pave the way for open discussions on the issue of gender-sensitive media coverage, particularly on issues such as violence against women.

The media plays a central role in forming and disseminating perceptions of gender. This project aims to reduce gender stereotyping and bring about gender equality and changes in social attitudes through positive media content, enabling greater media participation by women, recognising and reflecting on the role and potential of women in the media, and facilitating and developing a closer working relationship between the mainstream media sector and those working to empower women by giving them a voice.

All sectors, including the media sector, need to take the necessary action in the context of a multi-sectoral approach to challenge violence against women and change cultural attitudes towards gender norms.  

This project will run from March to November 2023.