Council of Europe: Gender Equality Will Help Freedom of Media

Baku / 27.02.18 / Turan: Presentation of the project "Gender Equality and Freedom of Media in Azerbaijan" was held in Baku hotel JW Marriott Absheron on Tuesday, initiated by the Council of Europe.

National partners in the implementation of the project are the State Committee for Family, Women and Children, the Press Council, the so-called. The Trade Union of Journalists of Azerbaijan, Association of Women Journalists.

Head of the Baku office of the Council of Europe Zoltan Hirnejz said in his speech that Azerbaijan demonstrates its commitment to gender equality, supporting the efforts of various structures and organizations in this direction. Being an important part of identity and individuality, gender roles are formed through socialization. Today, not only the family, school and workplace, but also the media, including new information technologies, influence this socialization. Therefore, it is very important that media resources be used at a professional level.

Ambassador of the European Union in Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas stated that gender equality is a fundamental human right. However, sometimes these rights are violated in connection with their gender identity. The solution of the problem requires the creation of a gender culture platform, which will be an innovative platform for interactive gender education and information for women and youth. A new project launched in Azerbaijan with the participation of journalists can help shape public opinion about the contemporary social roles of women and men.

Short speeches were made by the employee of the socio-political department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Vugar Salimov, the head of the Press Council Aflatun Amashov, the head of the Ombudsman's Office Aydin Safikhanli.

The EU representative for media and cooperation, Leyla Dervisaji, spoke about the content, timing and components of the project. According to her, the main goal of the project is to promote gender equality in the media sphere, as well as in society through media resources, ensure women's freedoms and rights, create conditions for realization of their potential and career growth. It is planned to hold trainings for regional journalists to teach them new rules of professional conduct, to prepare an adapted course of training with gender issues in the profile faculties of Azerbaijani universities. This is important from the point of view of the correct presentation of the material, the analysis of the problem by beginning journalists. The budget of the project, which will be realized during the year, is 250 thousand euros.

Mehriban Zeynalova, an expert on women's rights, said in her interview with Turan, the official reports of Azerbaijan submitted to international organizations indicate the implementation of the national strategy for gender equality, the empowerment of women, the creation of a legal framework in this area, and the development of women's leadership.

"However, in practice, the tasks set for the promotion of women in the sphere of public administration are far from being resolved. In our government there is not a single woman minister. During the municipal elections a couple of years ago, the number of women elected by the heads of these local self-government bodies increased to 30%. But then the regions were followed by massive resignations of women-municipalities, who were not allowed to work in normal conditions. Nothing is spoken about the reason.

The number of women in parliament has increased to 16.8%. Is this a lot? In Azerbaijan, top managers of ministries, large companies, banks consist exclusively of men. The gender balance has been disturbed in the media sphere, where about 50% of ordinary personnel (we are talking about correspondents) are women, while 95% of the heads of newspapers and magazines, news agencies are men," Zeynalova points out.

According to the human rights activist, it is necessary to conduct a serious study on the implementation of gender policy in Azerbaijan, draw up analysis on the basis of a sociological survey, as well as a comparative strategic analysis of the dynamic series over the past 10 years. In addition, you need to publish brochures that will reflect the results of the social research, to discuss these data in society. Such work will allow an objective assessment of the situation in this area. However, the event did not disclose the connection between gender and media freedom, stated in the title of the project "Gender Equality and Media Freedom in Azerbaijan".-0-