The economic, pandemic and refugee crises generated a rise in cases of violence in the Republic of Moldova. The situations should be reported correctly so that the experts in the field can analyze the tendencies of this phenomenon at regional and local levels, said Dominika Stojanoska, UN Women Representative to Moldova. In an event centering on the role of the mass media in preventing violence against women and girls, Dominika Stojanoska welcomed the ratification of the Istanbul Convention by Moldova’s Parliament, noting that concrete measures are needed to monitor and prevent violence and to prosecute aggressors, IPN reports.
“UNICEF and UN Women made an important common effort in an attempt to analyze the media tendencies regarding the reporting of different forms or cases of violence. There were launched different recommendations as regards gender-sensitive reporting in different cases of violence. The launch and implementation of these recommendations are very important,” stated the UN Women Representative to Moldova.
Maha Damaj, UNICEF Moldova Country Representative, said that gender-based violence is the least noticed phenomenon even if this is the most permanent form of violence in society. In Moldova, about 40% of the women since the age of 15 were exposed to physical or sexual violence. 10% of the children were subject to sexual violence and the number of girls among these is three times higher than of boys.
“These data can increase further if we do not take into account other types of violence, such as sexual harassment, for instance. The saddest moment is that this fact remains unreported due to shame, the impunity for aggressors. The role of the media in reporting and promoting measures to prevent violence is very important. Today, given that we have digital technologies, we have increased access to online information, but this makes us bear also greater responsibility,” said the UNICEF Moldova Country Representative.
Cristina Bobîrcă, head of the Department of Training and Organizational Development at the Association of Independent Press, said the representatives of the journalistic community in Moldova should work on the professional and ethical approach to complex subjects that treat cases of violence. It is very important to sensitize the public to these topics. The subjects referring to this area should be diversified.
Alina Radu, director and co-founder of the paper “Ziarul de Gardă”, noted that the digitization of the press in Moldova led to a phenomenon called “editorial offices without reporters”. There are now editorial offices that resort to copy-paste only and present only statistical data and do not want to perceive the essence of the problem. The reporters who go to the remotest corners of the republic to make a feature report on violence do not manage to obtain information from the victim or do not enjoy the support of the audience. Sometimes they feel discouraged. In the case of such reports, more work should be done with aggressors than with victims so as to determine the situation in which they are.
The event titled “Role of the mass media in preventing violence against women and girls” was staged as part of the campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence”.
