Media Advocacy in Nepal with respect
to Violence Against Women
By Pratyoush Onta
Introduction
In simple terms, advocacy means arguing in favor of a cause and advancing
reasons for it. Thus, media advocacy means applying various forms of the
media to propagate the arguments in favor of a cause. Broadly speaking,
media advocacy has two objectives: (i) to influence the policy makers
or the people in authority in order to change the policy: and (ii) to
inform and educate the target group or general public about specific issues/s.
In recent years, many women groups and activists has assertively advocated
for women's cause propagating several women's issues through the media.
Violence against women (VAW) is one of the major women's issues recognized
by women groups and activists. There are several acts categorized as VAW
in the context of Nepali society, namely trafficking in women and girls;
forced prostitution; rape custodial rape; battering; dowry related abuse;
murder; sexual abuse in street, public transport and working place; sexual
harassment; hijacking or kidnapping; suicide; child marriage; marrigae
between people of large age differential polygamy etc.
All forms off the VAW are related to our social, cultural, economic,
political and legal structures. In other words, they are reflection of
our attitude and treatment toward women. It is certain that unless the
male supremacy in every sphere of the society and the subordinate position
of women are changed, we cannot end VAW in our society. Many categories
of the VAW listed above can be diminished by legal reforms and proper
implementation of the laws and making people aware of the situation. Therefore,
media advocacy with respect to VAW is done for two reasons: one is to
change the discriminatory laws against women and second is to make people
aware of the reality and inspire them to fight for justice.
There are several NGOs which are advocating to combat VAW. They have
also formed networks or alliances to strengthen their struggle more firmly.
Unfortunately, these networks are working for the same cause in isolated
manner. For instance, Alliance against Trafficking in Women and children
in Nepal (AATWIN) and National Network against Trafficking in Women and
Girls (NNATWG) both are working to end the trafficking in women and girls
of Nepal separately. Why this divide ? It is said that many of the women
activists involved in the network or alliance have political background.
They cannot leave their political leaning or ideological belief for the
sake of women's cause.
Women's NGOs and networks execute media advocacy in three ways: producing
advocacy materials by themselves; hiring journalists to work for their
particular purpose and disseminating information in the mainstream media.
Women's advocating NGOs and networks have failed so far to maintain transparency
in their organizational structure, financial source and activities. Thus,
the media has usually seen them with suspicion. They also seem less interested
in incorporating the media as their partner.
On the other hand, the media itself is also not free flaws. The mainstream
media is very much politicized and it picks up women issues according
to the political interest of patron political parties. Due to the lack
of resources and trained work force, the media is not capable to produce
widely impressive materials. Some of the women issues like trafficking,
prostitution and rape come in the media just to create sensation. The
media seems to be less concerned about women's issues and rights.
However, some women's alternative media organizations have come into
existence in order to conduct media advocacy in favor of women's cause.
Asmita and Sancharika Samuha are best examples of this kind. Though their
influence cannot be measured in quanitity, they have surely made impact
in certain section of the society. The issues presented by them are often
picked up by the mainstream media which has a large audience or readership.
Based on the discussion in the seminar, the following recommendations
can be advanced for futher action regarding media advocacy to combat violence
against women:
- Though women's advocacy NGOs, networks or alliances are divided according
to whatever political ideologies, they should come together keeping aside
their differences for some time and focus on an issue.
- The networks of NGOs, advocating for women's cause, should try to include
media in their network, they should not see media as their adversary.
- The women's advocacy NGOs, networks alliances should maintain transparency
in their organizational structure, financial source and activities. They
should feel free to provide information about their organizations and
activities.
- It is not enough to inform people that VAW is increasing in our society,
it is also imperative to let them know that there are ways to diminish
the VAW and what actions can be taken to deal with particular case of
VAW.
- Sometimes media itself becomes a cause to provoke VAW and materials
presented by it can be called as an act of VAW. For example, defaming
false remark about some woman in the media may cause her to suffer. Publication
of obscene materials is an act of VAW for it demean women's dignity. The
media should be conscious to present women in their right perspective.
- The persons working in the media should be made conscious and sensitive
about gender issues and women's human rights.
Media Advocacy in Nepal with respect to Violence Against Women
Pratyoush Onta
Listen to these voices from the field:
"Media is the medium through which we can make the masses aware as
well as create pressure on the policy maker." - ANGO activist
"Journalists needs to put in a little more effort into their work:
they need to take a little more risk to bring out the real facts."
- A NGO activist
"Journalists needsto be given orientation regarding the issue of
violence against women if we are to see better reporting." A NGO
activist
"The media has raised important issues related to women in Nepal.
Our weaknesses can be overcome by real institutional initiatives and not
by lectures on creativity or so-called duties of the media."- An
angry reporter
"We have covered their issues. Hence it is not necessary to always
mention the names of the NGOs or activists in our reports. These people
simply want publicity for their own organizations and themselves...They
say they are doing social service; they are more like development entrepreneurs."
- A reporter who is a victim o INGO animosity
"As a woman, I am expected to report about the work of the various
women-related NGOs all the time. They expect me to always describe their
projects and programs in a positive light. But as a reporter my duty is
to bring out the issue. Hence they get mad with me. Because of the excessive
pressure form certain NGOs, I feel like quitting reporting on women's
issues altogether." - A reporter.
The above quotes have been extracted from interviews I did while researching
for this paper. 1 They define for me the territory that we need to be
familiar with if we want to achieve even a preliminary understanding of
what "media advocacy in Nepal with respect to violence against women"
means. While there might be more than one way to seek this understanding.
I have organized my inquiry my inquiry in four general sections. In the
first, I seek for conceptual clarity regarding the term "media advocacy"
and elaborate, somewhat along theoretical lines, the various complexities
related to this concept in the Nepali society at large. In the second
section, I provide a capsule history of how the subject - violence against
women (VAW) - arrived in the national public sphere and discuss the salient
features of some recent media reports on this issue. In the third section,
I report from my conservations with members of advocacy group and media
persons regarding the state of the relationship between the two sides.
In the last section, I conclude by discussing some issues that demand
further reflection.
Section I : The Simplicity and Complexity of Media advocacy
Introduction : Media and Advocacy
In the past few years, a lot has been said about the media in Nepal.
Many seminars have been conducted under the title "The role of the
media in a democracy" or "Civil society and democratization:
media's responsibility" or some such title. More often than not such
occasions have given the invited speakers and participants and participants
an opportunity to provide not-soconstructive criticim of the performance
of the Nepali media. People from every other profession, who rarely examine
the quality of their own performace, feel free to download tons of advice
on media people. While much of what they say is useless, Some of their
criticims are valid: the Nepali press is urban and particularly Kathmandu
oriented, accusatory political journalism relegates every other topic
to the inside pages, the concerns of the average hardworking Nepali are
rarely the subjects of headlines or investigations, the electronic media,
on the whole, is oriented toward cheap entertainment or government propaganda,
etc. In other words, if the press is supposed to be an independent watchdog
of the public good in Nepali society. It has not succeeded all that the
much in that role. Instead in its present capacity, the press seems to
be simply and extension of the politically and financially well-connected
power elite 2.
Also in the past five years, all kinds of bikase (development) organizations
and activists- major donors INGOs, NGOs individuals - have started to
emphasize that "advocacy"should be one of the important "projects"
of all development agents (cf. Actionaid Nepal, 1997). Many INGOs, fearful
that they might be seen as meddling too directly in the affairs of Nepal,
actually do not use the term "advocacy" and instead prefer to
talk about how politicies could be "influenced". When the term
is used by Nepali NGOs, advocacy can refer to both public education campaigns
in the name of "awareness raising" and to efforts by such organizations
(or increasingly, networks of organizations) toward supporting a specific
cause via policy and legislative level initiatives. After working at the
micro-level for decades, these INGOs and NGOs now claim that more needs
to happen at the macro (i.e. state policy, legislature, judiciary, etc.)
level as well if millions of dollors are not going to be poured into projects
that do not produce significantly tangible changes.
One can come across various advocy manuals in the Kathmandu offices of
these organizations. One such manual, prepared for work in Africa, provides
multiple definitions of advocacy: "Advocacy consists of different
strategies aimed at influencing decisionmaking at the organizational,
local, provincial, national and international levels" The same manual
goes on to state: "Effective advocacy may succeed in influencing
policy decision making and implementation by educating leaders, policy
makers, or those who carry out policies; reforming existing policies,
laws and budgets, developing new programs: creating more democratic, open
and accountable decision-making structures and produres". For the
purposes of this paper, we can accept all these as working definitions
of the terms "advocacy".
Writing in the Resource Kit of Advocacy and Campaign Building published
by the National Centre for Advocacy Studies based in Pune, India, Dr.
Nirmala S Pandit states, "The course of advocacy efforts on any particular
issue would be determined on the basis of strategies used, tactics employed
and skills exercised" (NCAS n.d.:3). The effectiveness of advocacy
campaigns depends on, according to Pandit how efficiently the following
strategies are deployed: identification and framing of the issues; information
collection; mobilization of interested people and network formation; campaign
planning; involvement of the media and building up on pressure on the
legislature. Although the list contains many necessary strategies for
the successful execution of an advocacy campaign, our attention here is
limited to the role of the media in such a process. Since it is supposed
that the media can give board exposure to the issue being advocated and
that it can influence large masses and the most influential actors at
the same time, the media is considered to be a very effective tool for
advocacy. Yet the term "media advocacy" has not received much
scrutiny in this country. Not much seems to have been discussed or written
on what on what media advocacy entails in todays's Nepal.
Media Advocacy: The Perspective of an Organization
To initiate a systematic discussion, we might being to think about "media
advocacy" from the perspective of a single organization or coalition
advocating a particular cause at any given time. For this purpose, the
Resource Kit referred to earlierr is helpful. It defines media advocacy
as the "strategic use of media... to advance a social or public policy
initiative" and lists a 10 step process for any media advocacy campaign:
Defining goals, objectives and time-lines; defining and understanding
the target audience; developing press lines (i.e., catchy headlines or
phrases impressed upon press people through reiteration); choosing appropriate
media channels; building and networking; an evaluation (NCAS n.d. : 59,
67). 4 Similar guidelines for dealing with the press can be found in other
manuals as well as well (Sharma n.d.: 58-60; Martinez and Weiner 1979;
cf. Covey 1992).
The Resource Kit and other manuals fail to rise above the perspective
of a single organization of coalition while thinking about the issue of
media advocacy. In other words. while recognizing the heterogeneity of
media forms (hence the talk about "choosing appropriate media channels")
they treat media as a simple conduit where the issue being advocated can
be dumped for it to be elaborated by reporters and editors for the large
masses. The press is treated as a passive instrument that can be "strategically
used" to serve the cause of the advocacy. The manulas seem to be
saying that once the issue is well-identified by the advocates, and when
it is effectively presented or imposed on the press, it will show up in
the media. This line of thinking is hardly suprising given that such manuals
have been produced to help a single organization or coalition prepare
its strategy regarding one important aspect (media) of policy targeted
advocacy. Manuals are expected to provide neat, step-by-step, procedures
if they are to be useful to a generic set of users; they are not scholarly
treatises that necessarily take into consideration the various complexities
of the society in which media advocacy is being discussed and planned.
We shall now turn our attention to some of these complexities.
Media Advocacy : A Societal Perspective
To begin to appreciate these complexities, let us reduce the set of actors
involved in media advocacy to just two groups: NGOs who want to advance
a cause and independent media organization. Since the interest of these
two groups do not necessarily coincide and even when they do, the respective
notions advanced by each groups as to what media advocacy entails might
differ significantly, there is a lot of tension between them. To understand
this scenario, let us reduce the universe of possibilities to just the
following three cases:
a) NGOs as self-producers of media materials: Here those advancing the
cause produce the actual media material and provide it to media organizations.
These materials can come in several forms. They could simply be press
releases that routinely "feed" the media with information on
the subject being advocated. With respect to the print media, these materials
can come in the form of feature articles written by members of the NGOs.
In the electronic media (radio and TV). this can come as sponsored simple
information-disseminating programms of "magazine reportage"
style broadcasts. While writing skills are needed for the earlier cases,
necessary skilled personnel have to be found for the production of materials
for the electronic media. Moreover sponsoring of programs in the electronic
media is usually very expensive and hence this is an option that is only
available to well-funded NGOs. But when the money can be found and since
the contract between the NGOs and media organizations. With respect to
Violence against Women (VAW) in particulral, we can mention the radio
programs prepared by the organization SAATHI that were broadcast over
Radio Nepal in 1994.
b) NGOs support media production but do not control the contents: Here
those advancing the cause provide financial and other support for the
production of good magazine or reportage copy by independent journalists
but do not control or censor its final contents. With respect to VAW,
one example of such as effort is the fellowship provided by SAATHI to
the producers of the independent radio program Khoj Khabar to report on
domestic voilence.5 In such an arrangement, since professional media people
might come up with story angles that do no necessarily advance the advocacy
cause of the funding organization(s), there can be some tension between
the two sides.
c) Advocacy groups and independent media production: It is here that
much of the tension and politics related to media advocacy can be found.
Organizations advancing a cause invite media people to their programs
and projects in the hope that they will get good coverage. Even when "satisfactory"
reporting of the issues but not those of the organizers (in their perpective)
has been done, the latter have resorted to all kinds of means to get even
with reporters. NGO personnel, it is claimed, remain mostly oblivious
of the conditions and constraints (financial and other resources, gatekeeping
politics within media organizations etc.) within which more will be said
later, is a major source of tension between advocacy groups and and media
people. On the other hand, media organizations also come in different
sizes and shapes and represent various social groups as such. Government
owned and controlled Nepal TV and Radio Nepal as well as Gorkhapatra Sancharika
Samuha who, even as they are independent media organization, are committed
to producing generally pro-women gendered reportage or feature articles.
This variety in media organizations introduces its own tensions both within
and between media personnel and advocacy groups.
While greatly reduced into three neat models, above discussion should
help us to see some of the complexities that make up the world of media
advocacy in Nepal. In actuality, the number of players and agents involved
are greater than the two major groups identified above. Even within each
group - say a coalition of NGOs working on the theme of VAW- there will
be tensions emanating from competition for funds, affiliations along political
party lines personality clashes in and between member organizations. On
the other hand, the hierarchy within different types of media organization
or their gatekeeping policies might work against the good intentions of
reports on it as often as they would like to. Hence even if the number
of such journalists were to suddenly increase, this might not mean that
the media would necessarily further advocate positions against VAW. Without
paying attention to such multiply-inflected politics within advocacy organization
and within media organizations, any serious discussion about media advocacy
in Nepal will be futile.
Section II: Locating Violence Against Women in the Nepali Media
Violence Against Women in Nepal
The above discussion has provided us with a framework within which we
might broadly understand the complexities of media advocacy in Nepal.
The discussion in this section will focus on actual media coverage of
VAW. I begin with a general discussion of VAW in Nepal and then discuss
the contents of some print media reports on VAW with particular reference
of trafficking in women and girls and domestic violence.
About nine years ago, Asmita (No.2) published articles on the problems
associated with "eve teasing " and dowry. The write-ups definitely
identified the harassment faced by women in each of these cases but did
not go so far to identify identified them as VAW but instead presented
them a "social problems". Five years later, in February 1994,
Asmita (No. 21) carried an article on sexual harassment in public places
in Kathmandu which forcefully argued that such practice be seen as a VAW
similar to rape, prostitution, and pornography. In September 1995, Asmita
(No. 37) carried a cover story on dowry being one source of increasing
incidents of domestic violence against women in Nepal. Within a short
span of seven years, if writings in Asmita are taken as our evidence,
the harassment faced by women in public and private spaces and the concomitant
mental and physical tortures experienced by them were identified as incidents
of VAW instead of just some generic "social problems".
This development gives us one way to map the history of the process through
which VAW arrived in the Nepali national public sphere as an "issue"
for those concerned about gender justice in our society. While it is difficult
to exhaustively track this history here, we must note that many different
I/NGOs, development activists and media personnel have played an active
role in this process. Many NGOs that have taken up "women's issues"
have been critical agents in this process. One such organization, SAATHI,
established in 1992, has produced several publications (Thapa and Rana
1994, Rana-Deuba et al. 1997), papers (Singh 1996, 1997) and reports (SAATHI
1997) on VAW in Nepali society and difinitely contributed to an increased
level to media coverage of this issue. One of SAATHI's research studies
concludes that violence against women and girls (VAW & G incidents."
The study further stated, "In 77 percent of the cases the perpetrators
were reported to be members of the family. Most VAW & G incidents
were reported as occuring in the night. In the case of domestic violence,
nearly 58 percent reported it as being a daily occurrence" (Rana-Deuba
et al. 1997: ii).6 while it is not clear how the results obtained from
this study based on samples from five districts of Nepal, can be extrapolated
ot the entire Nepali population, there is no reason to doubt that VAW
is a severe problem in Nepali society.
When His Majesty's Government of Nepal formed the National Action Plan
for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in late 1997 (following initiatives
created by the UN Women World Conference in Beijing in September 1995),
it identified VAW as one of the twelve critical areas of concern. Discussing
the types of VAW, it identifies several as kinds of mental torture (violence)
experienced by women. It also identifies the following as kinds of VAW:
battery, rape trafficking, forced prostitution, incest, forced abortion.
Sexual abuse of girl children, physical abuse resulting in burns, cuts
and disablement, hijacking, murder and increasing work-load of daughters-in-law.
The Action Plan further states that the present legal set-up is only inadequately
capable of dealing with physical VAW and in incapable of dealing with
mental VAW. It also states that women who have been victimized do not
have access to quick and cheap legel service. The Action Plan also lists
several necessary policies, plans and programs to deal with the issue
of VAW in Nepal. After identifying the types of VAW prevalent in Nepal
and the economic, social and political sources from which they emanate,
it states that the necessary preventive measures, including legal ones,
will be taken.
With reference to the role of the media in all this, the Action Plan
states that advertisements which debase women should be barred adn the
media should portray women in a "positive" role. It aslo states
that some criteria should be established to censor or control writings
and programs that might promote VAW. Under a five-year program schedule,
it mentions that the public will be informed about VAW via the print media
and programs that discourage VAW will be broadcast over Radio Nepal and
Nepal TV. While the statements and plans included in the Action Plan with
respect to media advocacy against VAW are laudatory, very little evidence
exists therein of an appreciation of the complexities (discussed above)
that mark the field.
Content Analysis of Media Reports on VAW
In the short time we had for the preparation of this paper, no thorough
study of the print and electronic media archives could be done to come
up with an exhaustive analysis of both the types and contents of various
media reports on Nepal. Hence for the purpose of this discussion, we have
resorted to reading of the files of paper cuttings on reports on kept
at the offices of the Sancharika Samuha and on a recently completed report
by Asmita on print and electronic media coverage of trafficking in women
and girls.7 The files referred to pertain to the four-month period from
Janurary to April 1998. I have not tabulated the total number of reports
(by month) included in these files, nor given the breakdown of individual
reprots by the kind of because the files are incomplete in the sense that
they do not encompass the entire range of nationally prominent newspapers.8
In addition, information regarding the page numbers pm which the collected
reports were printed in the individual newspapers are missing (cf. Joseph
and Sharma1994). Hence this is only a simple qualitative reading.
Based on the thematic focus of the various print media kept in those
files, we can state the following. news for Janurary focus on suicide
by women (after failed relationships or marriages), rape, trafficking
and prostitution, domestic violence (dowry, battery, sexual abuse), sexual
harassement, murder hijacking, sexual abuse of Nepali women who work abroad,
and on the basis of their political beliefs. In February, many news are
about cases of Nepali women being sexually abused in work places outside
of Nepal, mostly in the Mid East. News about trafficking, prostitution,
marriage of minors, marriage between people of large age differential,
and dowry related abuse are also included. An editirial in Kantipur highlighted
a dowry-related VAW.
In March, news reports focus on trafficking and prostitution, rape, harassment
of women who married without parental approval, suicide, polygamy, and
murder. There is also a report of perpetrated by another women. Several
editiorials were published in Gorkhapatra (on domestic violence), Samacharpatra
(on the need for consistency between talk about gender equality and practice,
and the need for strong legal action against rapists) and Kantipur (domestic
violence against children). In April, news reports focus on sexual abuse
of children, rape of children, child prostitution, repatriated commercial
sex worker, harrasment of female political activists by the police, etc.
Some reports about women who had murdered other women were also published.
Editorials in Kantipur on two consecutive days focused on domestic violence
and custodial rape.
In an effort to focus on media coverage of just two kinds of in some
detail. I have picked up the themes of trafficking and domestic violence.
For the former I have relied on Asmita's study and for the latter, a reading
of the above discussed files.
Trafficking in Women and Girls for Prostitution
The Asmita study looked at both the print and the electronic media to
see how they had covered the issue of trafficking in women and girls for
prostitution. After reading almost 1600 print media materials on this
subject from about 100 publications (newspapers, magazines and journals)
over a ten year period ending in mid-1997, Saroj Pant, one of the reserachers
of the Asmita team, reached among others, the following conclusions (Asmita
1998: Chapter 3):
a) The media does not have a precise definition of trafficking.
b) The increase in the number of media reports of this subject after 1990
is due to the increase in the number of print media publications after
the Jana Andolan.
c) The pattern of reportage has remained the same. Same information sources
(police reports, victims' statements, NGO activists and seminars) are
used by all of the reporters who rarely victims' statements, NGO activists
and seminars) are used by all of those information.
Reporters have also shown the tendency to add exaggerated and speculative
statements and assumptions to their reports for the sake of titillation.
Thus media coverage of this issue has become both tedious and suspect.
The legal complexities associated with trafficking as a crime are rarely
the focus of these reports.
d) The media has been able, however partially, to convey some of the changing
dynamics of the trafficking business. For instance, with respect to the
place of origion of the victims, the media has now alerted us that women
are being trafficked out of many districts in the Terai.
e) The coverage is victim-focused and not victimizer-focused. The travails
of the victims are given much coverage while the reporters show no evidence
of the ability to investigate the powerful mafia members who are said
to be the ones who sustain the trafficking networks.
f) The media has shown a negative attitude towards the NGOs and social
activists working in this field.
With respect to how the electronic media has covered this issue, Asmita
researchers Anju Chhetri and Manju Thapa studied 22 different programs
broadcast over Nepal TV, three feature films and about 100 Chelibeti programs
broadcast over Radio Nepal (Asmita 1998: chapter-4). They reached, among
others the following conclusions:
a) Telefilm scripts draw from the by-now familiar components of trafficking
saga. The quality of these telefilms has varied a lot. Some NGO-productions
are of abysmal quality.
b) Documentaries produced by Nepal Police and broadcast over Nepal TV
have been of good quality, both in terms of overall presentation and the
information contained there in.
c) The four TV talk programs that were reviewed lacked a strong structure
and the respective anchors left a lot to be desired when it came to knowledge
about the subject under discussion.
d) The three feature films reviewed failed to communicate the severity
of trafficking as a crime in Nepal.
e) The Chelibeti prgrams broadcast over Radio Nepal have generally been
of good quality, both in terms of the information contained threr in and
in terms of content-genres (song, drama, interview, etc.). This is encouraging
as the radio is still the most powerful media in Nepal.
Chhetri and Thapa also conclude that since the programs broadcast over
the electronic media have been produced under great resource-constraints,
they should not be reviewed too critically. Instead their role in the
dissemination of the message against trafficking in women and girls must
be reconized, add the duo.
Domestic Violence
Reading the above mentioned files of print media cuttings, I came to the
following conclusions:
a) The incidents of VAW that have been reported can be categorized under
domestic violence as follows: marriage of minors, marriage between two
with a large age differential, dowry related, battery, burns and other
bodily harm, sexual abuse, incest, step-parental abuse, suicide caused
by family tensions, and murder by relatives.
b) Most reports are incident-oriented; they contain the bare minimum information
and there is very little said about the process that might have led to
the incident of domestic violence. Hence they are weak in style and substance.
c) In most cases, the news, source for the initial report is the police;
there is almost never a follow-up report once the police has investigative
the case.
d) When large broad sheet dailies have carried editorials on this subject,
they have usually been published after the respective newspaper has reported
an incident of domestic violence. The editorials usually mention the righs
of Nepali women guaranteed by the constitution of Nepal and the work being
done by various women-oriented NGOs and usually ask "why has not
the situation of Nepali women improved despite all these efforts ?"
e) The number of photographs accompanying the reports of domestic violence
in these files were so few that no statement regarding the appropriateness
of their use can be made at this moment.
f) There are some exceptionally good reports. An example of such in a
board sheet paper is a report filed by Shankar Kharel from Biratnagar
in Kantipur in early Feb. Describing how Terai communities are witnessing
increasing incidents of domestic violence against women in relation to
demands for dowry by the husband and his family, Kharel has presented
details of actual cases and used a number of sources of highlight various
aspects of this problem.
For both the Asmita study on trafficking and for my own reading of the
coverage on domestic violence, it was not easy to figure out the exact
routes that the reports "traversed" before apperaing in print.
While we can surmie that some news were NGO-supported and others were
intiated by the reporters themselves, only a more thorough study can reveal
more detailed information about this subject. One further point needs
to be made regarding this kind of exercise in content analysis: When looking
at the archives of reports or articles on VAW published within a given
time period, the media analyst can feel as through the subject has received
a lot of attention. But as far as the effectiveness of media reportage
goes, we need to also think about the overall placement of these items
in the papers as they appeared. That is from the point of view of a newspaper
reader reader reading the papers on daily basis, we need to ask how prominently
the VAW-related items were placed vis-a-vis other news on that day. And
moreover we also need to ask if the readers actually felt the compulsion
to read them and if so, what message was really conveyed during the experience
of reading ? These are methodological concerns that should not escape
our attention when we are immersed in content analysis, especially in
Nepal where there should not escape our attention when we are immersed
in content analysis, especially in Nepal where there seems to be a lot
of variance in how even the literate population "digests" when
materials.
Section III : NGO Activists and the Media - Mutual Mistrust
We have already taken note of the multiply-inflected politics of media
advocacy in the first section of this paper. Hence it is also necessary
to rise above the usual obsessions of a media analyst for content analysis
and pay attention to what is being said and by whom with reference to
media advocacy at sites away from the printed newspaper or the report
of the electronic media. This kind of listening is necessary if we are
to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities that characterize the
world of media advocacy in Nepal.9
"Media is the medium through which we can make the masses aware
as well as create pressure on the policy makers" says Sandhya Shrestha
of CWIN, which is a member of the Alliance Against Trafficking of Women
in Nepal (AATWIN). "Even in a subject like trafficking that has received
much media attention, there isn't enough national awareness yet. Hence,
journalists need to put in a little more effort into their work; they
need to take a little more risk to bring out the real facts. And they
need to stop re-victimizing the victims of VAW by say, publishing the
names and photos of women who have been raped," adds Shrestha.
Madhuri Singh, President of SAATHI, the organization that focuses on
VAW and on whose initiative the National Coalition Against Violence Against
Women and Girls was established in 1977 says, "Media people's awareness
of the issue that is being advocated must be heightened. Journalists need
to be given orientation regarding the issue of VAW if we are to see better
reporting. There is no point blaming the media for what it can not do,
we should work together with media persons," adds Singh.
Shanta Thapaliya of Legal Aid and Counseling Centre ( LACC) who is also
the vicechairperson of the National Network Against Trafficking of Women
and Girls was established in 1977 says, "Media people's awareness
of the issue that is being advocated must be heightened. Journalists need
to be given orientation regarding the issue of VAW if we are to see better
reporting. There is no point blaming the media for what it can not do,
we should work together with media persons," adds Singh.
Shanta Thapaliya of Legal Aid and Counseling Centre (LACC) who is also
the vice chairperson of the National Network Against Trafficking of Women
and Girls (NNTWG) said that factual reporting that can keep up with the
changing dynamics of the trafficking networks in Nepal are necessary if
this crime is to be stopped. "Even as the reports on trafficking
have become tedious, they need to be continually placed in the papers
and read because newer cohorts of cohorts of teenagers, who are the most
likely victims of this crime, need to be continually told about the misfortunes
of others who have been trafficked. The media still remains the most powerful
medium when it comes to taming the dreams of teenagers or making their
guardians aware of this crime. The media should open the eyes of the government
as well. It should take risks and when it does that, even the criminals
will be scared," adds Thapaliya.
Communicator and media consultant, Bandana Rana adds that there needs
to be investment on media people to increase their reporting capacity
on VAW. "Resources should be spent to enable people to cover specific
in depth," adds Rana.
Listening to journalists who have been unfairly critized by criticized
by certain big-time NGO personalities of Kathmandu for writing "unsatisfactory"
reports, we begin to get a view of another aspects of this media advocacy
scenario. Several journalists I spoke to at Kantipur Publications, for
instance, told me of incidents which have put them off from reporting
NGO-advocacy issues. On two separate occasions, three journalists were
chided for leaving out the name of an "important" person among
the organizers. "It is not necessary to list the names of all the
organizers" says one journalists who wishes to remain unnamed here.
"We have covered their issues. Hence it is not necessary to always
mention the names of their organizations in our reports" says Binaj
Gurubacharya, a reporter for The Kathmandu Post who is a victim of NGO
animosity. "These people simply want publicity for their own organizations
and themselves. They use local media coverage as evidence of their work
when negotiating funding deals with donors. They have put some reporters
in their payroll at times And they treat us as if we are also in their
payrolls. They say they are doing social service; they are more liked
development entrepreneurs," he adds.
"As a woman, I am expected to report about the work of the various
women-related NGOs all time. They expect me to always describe their projects
and programs in a positive light. But as a reporter my duty is to bring
out the issue. Hence they get mad with me. Because of the excessive pressure
from certain NGOs, I feel like quitting reporting on women's issues reporting,
they should write feature articles themselves," adds Sherchan. She
also adds that NGOs mostly talk about what they will do, but rarely allow
the media any access to information necessary to analyze the effectiveness
of their programs. She also warns other journalists to be conclusions
have been reached revealed to the readers at large.
Ghamaraj Luintel, a reporter for radio Sagarmatha with extensive print
journalism experience feels similarly about the NGOs. "They hide
their weaknesses and always present their programs to the funders who
are the only ones that need to be pleased. When we tired to do several
reports on AIDS-related subjects. I and my colleagues have been denied
access to people and sources of information. NGOs don't trust us but they
allow foreign media to film HIV positive people without any shame. When
they need us, they feed us a samosa and try to dump their message on us."
says Luintel. "We have raised important issues related to women in
Nepal. Our weaknesses can be overcome by real institutional initiatives
and not by leactures on creativity or so-called duties of the media"
adds Luintel. His co-worker, Jitendra Rawat asks, "Others trust the
press. Why don't these NGO activists trust us ?" Luintel adds, "We
should like to broadcast positive stories about NGO work in Nepal, but
for that to happen, this era of mutual distrust has to end."
There are other voices from the world of media as well. Sangita Marahatta
a print and radio reporter, complains that most NGO activists are difficult
to get hold of. While trying to make some radio reports on AIDS- related
themes, she was not given any appointments by key people for even a month.
A few have been more helpful she adds. The fault is not entire theirs,
says Marahata, because reporters have in the past and still today misused
information given to them by NGO personnel. Hence she says both sides
are at fault. "The approach of the media person should be appropriate
and the NGOs should also be more helpful," she says.
Radio and print journalist Babita Basnet feels that Radio Nepal still
does not broadcast reports about VAW. She also says that media itself
has been a source of violence. "Sensational but inaccurate reporting
and character assassination is a form of violence. This is specially true
of evidences accusations hurled against publicly known women personalities"
adds Basnet.
Based on the report from the field, we can say the following: Without
putting an end to the mutual mistrust between NGOs and media people, we
can not see good media advocacy from a societal perspective in Nepal.
NGO focus should shift from demanding coverage of their programs as such
to seeing how the issues they advocate can be covered from insightful
angles. Media advocacy talk by NGO personnel has to rise above simple
notion of "getting journalists oriented to one's advocacy theme"
and be geared towards institutional initiatives that facilitate the work
of media people. The many NGO coalitions that work against VAW in Nepal
should pull together some of their financial resources for this purpose.
Journalists too should try to overcome the infirmities of their profession
through various strategies, both at the facilitation of access to relevant
information should extend that help.
Section IV: Conclusion and Questions
In this conclusion, I simply want to remind the readers that the main
argument of this paper has been for a call to work towards a better understanding
of what media advocacy entails in today's Nepal. I have discarded simple
notions of media advocacy as presented in advocacy manulas and called
for a more nuanced, societal view of what it means to use the media as
a tool of advocacy. By highlighting different actors involved in this
process have interests that do not necessarily coincide. This situation
creates the multiply-inflected politics that characterize the Nepali NGO
world, the media organizations and personnel and the relationship between
the two sides. A more through study is necessary to identify these interests
and ways which tame the debilitation aspects of the politics the arise
from them so informed and in-depth coverage of important issues can come
out regularly in all kinds of media.
This paper has also suggested that there is much room for improvement
in terms of media coverage of VAW. The researchers of the Asmita team
have delineated the shortcomings of the print and electronic media reports
and feature materials on trafficking in women and girls in Nepal. In doing
so, they have indicated the ways in which the media's ability to report
on this subject can be enhanced. I performed a similar exercise with respect
to recent coverage of domestic violence.
Before ending, I want to mention three themes that merit further reflection
with respect to media advocacy in Nepal.
a) In footnote 4 it was mentioned that the Resource Kit makes a distinction
between a media advocacy campaign and public education media campaign.
It defines media advocacy as advocacy that creates social change by advancing
public policy initiatives and public education media campaigns as the
attempts of the relevant organizations or coalitions "to education
media campaigns as the attempts of the relevant organizations or coalition
"to create awareness, a attitudinal change and behavioral change
on an individual and community create awareness, attitudinal change and
behavioral change on an individual and community level" (NCAS n.d.:
86). However as mentioned earlier, the term "media advocacy"
as used by various NGOs in Nepal, encompasses what the manual defines
as public media campaign. The NGO activists that I have talked to do not
make this distintion. Creating awareness and making attitudinal changes
are part of advocacy and the media can help achieve these goals, they
say.
We need to ask what relationship might exist between an increased level
of awareness regarding a problem, changes in state policies and tangible
changes in "ground reality." To elaborate this relationship,
I have picked up the example of trafficking in Nepali women. As discused
in the Asmita study, the media has reported this issue so many times that
the general readers have reached a level of reading fatigue regarding
this issue. The policy documents like the Action Plan discussed earlier
do reflect an acknowledgment of the severity of this problem in Nepal
but the problem seems to be growing in magnitude. So even after the media
has contributed to creating general awareness regarding the severity of
this problem and helped in putting it in the agenda of national discussion,
an effective solution seems unlikely to materialize in the near future.
This force us to think more seriously about what the relationship is between
media-generated awareness, policy change and changes in ground reality.
In more concrete terms, we should note that those who benefit from trafficking
mafia, we will have to say that the media is not enchancing our understanding
of the subject and hence is really not part of the advocacy campaign.
A more important criticism of the NGO failure to distinguish between
"advocacy" and "awareness raising" with some understanding
that the latter will in the long run assist the former comes from Shizu
Upadhya. She comments: "This understanding seems to bypass the very
fact that "advocacy" is/should be much pro-active, not just
hoping that somehow raised awareness will do the trick. It also, conveniently,
divorces NGOs from the responsibility of taking the time out to do their
homework and take specific stands on issues (likely to be controversial
difficult to take back once made, will live on in the memories of the
public may lose donor support once stand is taken, may even be the "wrong"
position, on hindsight !)."
Upadhya further adds: "I would like to underline the above issue
of doing homework and taking positions. By and large, issues that are
(or should be/are being into) the substance of media advocacy are the
many-sided, un-clear-cut type, it seems to me (Kamaiya, property rights,
child labour). Thus, the objective of media advocacy becomes to
a) raise the issues but also to
b) take specific stands on the issues. Thus we may all be in favor of
the liberation of the kamaiya, but what exactly are we advocating for
? This type of "position" becomes the advocacy line of the organization.
It also does away with the problem of
i) image of NGOs as short-term, publicity-oriented a which you raise.
If the organization is projecting a stand, and emphasizers this regularly
and on each occasion, then the message is picked up by the media. The
task at hand then become of "getting journalists oriented to one's
advocacy theme", but also, to connivance her/him of that particular
line. The latter is more difficult, and requires more efforts that just
inviting the journalists and serving them tea."
b) Seira Tamang raises an important issues: "It seems to me that
people have been so 'jargnized'- e.g. the lasted phrase in VAW being 're-victimized'-rape
victims being named and photographed in papers etc. These words are usually
said in English and it is almost as if they need no explanation. I've
always thought it would be more effective if they could describe it more
clearly, like having been raped, the last thing one wants to endure is
talking to straangers about what happened and thus having to relive the
incident when one is trying so hard to forget it. Such VAW jargons are
numerous and used so much. So along with what is being said, by whom may
be a focus on how what is being said might be useful-i.e. a questioning
of the terminology being used as perhaps not being the most useful in
getting across the more emotive parts of messages. Also just because the
slick terminology of VAW is being propounded (not in media alone but also
in bhasans) we should not assume that there is an increased level of
awareness."
c) Yet another point to consider would be to think about the segmented
nature of readers in Nepal. This necessitates the need to place one's
advocacy agenda in many different types of media. I am not just talking
about radio, TV, print but also different types of media within each category.
We need to distinguish the media along their political affiliations, and
along genres (board sheet, tabloids, magazines, etc. ). By this account
we say that many different types of media need to be used if the advocacy
campaign is to succeed. Paying attention to this point also allows us
to emphasize that concentrating on the issue and not drawing the media's
attention to oneself or one's organization, is the way to go if the NGO
advocates want coverage of the issue beyond party or genre lines. Also
since radio is still the most powerful medium in Nepal, we need to think
of how to break the state's monopoly over it even as new FM stations are
being allowed.
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