By: Dawda Baldeh
In their quest to combat Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), Muhammed S Bah, the President of the Gambia Press Union (GPU) has urged the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other institutions advocating to end SGBV to provide reporting grants to journalists to help them pursue stories. He made this plea at the end of a three-day training of journalists on sensitive and ethical reporting on GBV organized by UNFPA at Boaboa Hotel in Bijilo.
He revealed that there are a lot of gender-based violence cases that are under-reported.
“If the government is not proactively talking about these issues, the media has the responsibility to ensure that these stories are reported,” he said, adding that combating gender-based violence requires collective responsibilities.
“I was told by a senior official at the Ministry of Justice that they record over thirty (30) cases of GBV every month. This is sad.”
The GPU President noted that despite the laws criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGMC), the practice is still carried out by communities.
MS Bah urged various organizations that are advocating to end FGMC and GBV to support journalists with reporting grants to enable them to dig deep and expose the perpetrators.
“I wrote a story about FGMC to say despite the banning of FGMC, the practice is still carried in many societies. So, what is the media doing in ensuring that these cases are reported? The focus should not only be on politicians.
UNFPA, you have to bring money to support journalists. On many occasions, journalists want to do very important stories but their problem is the monetary aspect.
I discussed with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and I ask them to think of partnering with relevant stakeholders like the GPU to provide reporting grants for journalists to do story pitching on migration and give in-depth reports.
Let’s say you provide a grant and pay one hundred dollars per story, in six months you will have quality stories. You should empower the journalists so they can pursue different stores. And am urging all other institutions to support journalists with reporting grants,” he said.
The GPU President reiterated that journalists are committed to reporting in all aspects but lack the necessary support.
