Garowe, Somalia -Somali Women Journalists Organisation (SWJO) has concluded another two-day round-table discussion today, in partnership with IMS-Fojo, on New Media Law: review validation. More than 25 participants of media directors, senior journalists, and government officials attended the meeting.
The first one has been held in Mogadishu last week, this is the second of a series of roundtable discussions across the regional states aimed at bolstering future amendments and validating the New Media Law, which was signed into law by former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo.
These discussions of validation are a creation of pieces of training on the gender perspective of the law which SWJO has conducted in all federal member states and Benadir region in 2020 and 2021, where media workers have raised a number of articles and paragraphs on the law, where it is not highlighting the women’s rights and violating the work of journalists and the freedom of expression at large.
In their opening remarks, the ministry of women and human right’s director general of Puntland state, Ms. Luul Jama’ Nor, and the Director of Media Association of Puntland, Mr. Mohamed Dahir, both expressed the importance of this law for the Somali media and underlined that this law needs amendments in terms of gender, freedom of expression, power of the government and among others.
Participants had two days of discussions and mostly reiterated the recommendations from the roundtable discussion held in Mogadishu, which has been previously recorded. Attendees debated at length articles concerning censorship, culture and religion, the role of the ministry of information in different states, the status of the national media council, and licensing journalistic work and among others.
The inadequacy of gender and women’s rights in the law was also pointed out so that, legislators can consider ways that working conditions and rights of a female journalist can be better improved. Participants recommended some of these key issues that should be mentioned in the law: In accordance with the professional constitution and labor law, women can hold top positions and can perform as their counterparts male journalists do, and more importantly no one can be discriminated against according to their gender. Therefore, attendees emphasized the need of including articles that protect and assure gender equality in media.
SWJO’s executive member, Leyla Osman, said in her closing remarks. “Thanked the participants and emphasized the need to encourage and influence lawmakers so that, we can finally have a law, where gender and women’s rights are respected, freedom of speech and the work of the journalists, in general, are not violated.
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