Protection of rights of children and human dignity of women should be the primary consideration in any decision to feature pornographic material on television, says Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya.
Minister Mayende-Sibiya is in New York leading a high-level South African delegation to the United Nations' session on the 15 Year Global Review of the Beijing Declaration. Amongst other things, the Beijing declaration focuses on women and the media and a few side events are organised at this session to reflect on the status of women in the media.
The declaration calls for an end to the projection of negative and degrading images of women in the media. The declaration, which South Africa is signatory to, states that, "degrading or pornographic media products are negatively affecting women." It calls upon the media to refrain from presenting women as inferior beings and exploiting them as sexual objects and commodities.
Minister Mayende-Sibiya said it was important that all sectors of society commit to realisation of already established rights of women. "As we build towards the International Women's Day on 8 March, it is critical to remind each other of what women fought for in Beijing in 1995," said Mayende-Sibiya.
She said the Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities is also concerned about children accessing pornographic materials.
"The obligation is on both the service-provider and subscribers who decide to purchase such services to ensure that there is no risk of children accessing pornographic material through their TVs at home.
"We are already faced with a challenge of children accessing these materials through on cellphones and computers. We have to reduce rather than increase the risk of exposure for children," said Minister Mayende-Sibiya.
The report of the global media monitoring project presented at the United Nations (UN) session indicates that there was little progress on improving gender issues in global media. The report indicates that while there was near parity between women (47 percent) and men (53 percent) as providers of popular opinion, 81 percent of experts or authorities used in news stories are men.
Link to the report: http://www.whomakesthenews.org
Enquiries:
Sibani Mngadi
Cell: 082 772 0161
Issued by: Department of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities
4 March 2010
