Building bridges for women empowerment
Smriti Irani, while addressing the event ‘Women in Emerging India’, released a report on ‘Status of Women in Media in South Asia’, researched jointly by SWAN and Institute for Studies in Industrial Development
On the eve of International Women's Day, Press Information Bureau (PIB) and the Indian Institute of Mass Communication under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting jointly organised an event 'Women in Emerging India' at National Media Centre, New Delhi.
Union Minister for Women and Child Development and Textiles Smriti Zubin Irani delivered the key note address at the event.
During the function, a report prepared by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) on 'Status of Women in Media in South Asia' was released by the Minister in the presence of other distinguished guests including Veena Sikri, Professor and Ambassador, Founding Trustee and Convener, South Asia Women's Network (SWAN), Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, Director General, PIB, Anubhuti Yadav, Head of Department of New Media and Information Technology, IIMC, New Delhi among others.
The report sponsored by the UNESCO has been researched jointly by the South Asia Women's Network (SWAN) and the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development.
The South Asia Women's Network (SWAN) flagship project, 'Women for Change: Building a Gendered Media in South Asia' has achieved definitive success after more than five years of coordinated, collective research by the participating institutions and individuals from nine countries of South Asia.
Smriti Irani, while congratulating the SWAN's efforts also shared the report's data. "Of all the women who had been surveyed, 83% of them were respondents from the news media and 17% from the entertainment. 8.96% of them availed their deserving facilities from the workplace. 42% confirmed that those that were entitled within their organisation were denied their benefits.
This report also highlights that less than 44% confirmed that the same amount of work done by them and their male counterparts received equal wage.
Only 1.49% received benefits for annual bonuses. Of all the women who had been surveyed, only 1 respondent had insurance for covering conflict areas."
"I request the DGPIB to send this report to all the Chief Editors, HRs, the CFOs of all those organisations from where these women participated in the survey for the research to do justice to them," added the minister.
Anubhuti Yadav conveyed her gratitude to the minister and Veena Sikri for sharing the findings of the research with the audience. "This will definitely provide a sense of direction to the journalists," said the professor of IIMC.
