Simplified Messages, Sensitive Media Reporting Integral To Gender Discourse

With experts calling the world population milestone of 8 billion an opportunity to reap rich demographic dividends, the spotlight is once again on the need to effectively address women’s issues, including in the media. According to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), demographic dividend is the potential for economic growth brought on by changes in population age composition, particularly when the proportion of people who are of the working age is higher those who are not.

The UNFPA, the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health, in partnership with the Outlook Group, organised a media and policy communication workshop titled “Development Reporting: Big Picture Versus Fine Print” in Delhi on Friday. While seeking to sensitise the media on population and gender-based violence to create informed public opinion, the workshop called upon journalists to find creative ways of making reporting reader friendly and experts to simplify their communication.

Andrea Wojnar, UNFPA representative, India; Poonam Muttreja, executive director, Population Foundation of India; Shireen Jejeebhoy, director, Aksha Centre for Equity and Wellbeing; Anushree Mishra, director – Programmes, Plan India; Sarah Jacob, senior news editor/anchor, NDTV; Japleen Pasricha, founder-director, Feminism In India; UNFPA’s Jaydeep Biswas, chief of policy; Kalpana Yadav, gender analyst; and Pinky Pradhan, communication and media specialist, UNFPA, shared their experiences, insights and learnings over different sessions moderated by Suchetana Ray, editor, Outlook Business. Senior English, Hindi and Odia journalists from Delhi, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan engaged closely with the experts.

Women’s Rights At The Core

Reminding the participants about the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, and the Beijing conference on gender equality, Wojnar highlighted how they immensely enriched the discourse on population and gender. “If women are constantly in fear of dying during childbirth, it is an ethical problem and human rights problem, which needs to be resolved,” she said.

Muttreja kicked off the first session by delving into reasons for low fertility rate in the developed countries versus high fertility rate in the lesser or under-developed ones, impact of lifestyle changes, loss of employment pre and post-Covid 19, family planning and investments in public health and education, and awareness about sexual and reproductive health.

“Despite 99 per cent of the population being aware of contraceptives in India, only 50 per cent use them,” she pointed out, adding that even though India was projected to surpass China’s population by 2023 there was “no need to panic as our birth rate and fertility rate have fallen below the replacement level”. “What we need to do is to share knowledge and spread information about sexual health and changing social norms, and educate people,” she averred.

Shireen Jejeebhoy, a demographer, termed measures like penalising people for having more than two children counter-productive. “A woman must be able to decide the number of children she wants to have. We are talking of family planning and sexual health and reproductive rights of women,” she said. She also spoke about unintended pregnancies and abortions.

Jaydeep Biswas threw light on the experience of nations using population control measures versus those experiencing population explosion, and the likely demographic implications of mega trends like migration, urbanisation and climate change.

Stories and narratives about gender-based violence (GBV) cannot be one-dimensional, said Kalpana Yadav. “What are the structural drivers that drive GBV? The issues of child marriage and gender-based violence seem simplistic, but there are several layers to it. We must address structural issues in the media externally and internally,” she added.

In the session on gender and harmful practices, Anushree Mishra spoke about improving gender sensitivity in the media.

The Other Side

Journalists Sutapa Deb, Sarah Jacob and Japleen Pasricha discussed the challenges of covering the development beat and providing stories that are replete with data and appeal to common people as well as how development journalists compete with cricket, celeb-culture and other beats. The media professionals debated about clickbait headlines, sensationalising stories and use of expressions like population explosion verses demographic dividend.

Talking about demographic dividend, Wojnar said, “Investing in family planning, health, education, creating employment and governance is how we can achieve demographic dividend.”