By SYLVIA MWEETWA –
THE Democratic Governance and Human Rights Advocacy (DEGHA) has attributed the increase in cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in Zambia to continued abuse of social media such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
DEGHA president, Gerald Mutelo has further challenged the Church and civil society to stand up and assist families whose relationships have been destroyed due to use of misuse of social media.
Mr Mutelo said it was clear that the use of WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media has had a negative impact and contributed to increased cases of GBV in the country and that there was need to carry out re-counseling programmes for married couples.
He said that the issue of social media cannot be ignored and require urgent attention if the institution of marriage was to be safeguarded.
Mr Mutelo said the technology was destroying homes and that it was important to come up with a strategy to assist in addressing the concerns of social media which was taking centre stage.
“It is clear that the issue of social media is destroying homes and families which is why the Church needs to carry out counseling on married couples and assist them renew their vows,“ he said.
Mr Mutelo said traditional media has a big role to play in assisting in the resolution of marriage differences.
“It is a shame that the country is slowly losing its cultural values because people have stopped respecting the old. Society looks at old people as wizard which should not be the case,” he said.
He appealed to husbands to show love to their wives to reduce on misunderstandings which were increasing by the day.
He called for respect of each other’s rights if marriages were to become stronger.
And those talked in the streets of Kitwe said that some men and women do not allow their spouses to touch their mobile phones because they have extra marital affairs.
Another trader said some couples have destroyed their homes because the couples spend time on social media instead of talking to each other.
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Empower vulnerable parents – community leader
By BRIAN HATYOKA –
VULNERABLE parents must be empowered economically so that they stop the habit of marrying off their girls to earn an income, a Livingstone-based community leader Susiku Mwanangombe has said.
Ms Mwanangombe, who is the coordinator for Tutalike Life Begins organisation for disadvantaged children and old people in Ngwenya Township, said child marriages would be difficult to stop if vulnerable parents were not empowered economically.
She said in an interview that her findings from most communities revealed that most girls were married off at tender age because their parents wanted to raise money from the dowry to meet their expenses.
“In Ngwenya Township where I live, a 14 year old girl was married off last week and I was told that the parents wanted to raise money for school fees and other expenses.
“Most vulnerable parents are busy marrying of their girls as a way of earning an income,” Ms Mwanangombe said.
She said Zambia needed to stiffen laws on child marriages so that parents who force their children into such marriages were penalised.
And Ms Mwanangombe has urged vulnerable women to seek ways of being
productive to avoid being abused.
She noted that some women were always going to some questionable clergymen almost on daily basis to seek spiritual intervention and ended up being abused by the same alleged spiritual leaders.
“Some churches now operate on 24/7 (throughout the day and night in a week) just like bars and you will find a lot of women there seeking for divine intervention.
“These women have no time to work and they only go for prayers every day. Prayers are okay but there should be time for prayers and work,” she said.
Ms Mwanangombe urged the Church mother bodies in Zambia to scrutinise some pastors and churches.
“You can’t allow any person even those without a certificate to be a pastor. We need proper regulation of churches in our communities.
“Pastors should be checked because most of them are deceiving people,” Ms Mwanangombe said.
She also urged the Government and law enforcement agencies to penalise clergymen who are in a habit of urging people living with HIV/AIDS to stop taking antiretroviral drugs after they have been prayed for.
Ms Mwanangombe said it was criminal to stop infected people from taking medication and hence such clergymen must me caged.
She said about 30 people died recently in her community after some pastors prayed for them and later told the patients to stop taking ARVs claiming that the disease had been taken away from them.
Ms Mwanangombe said such pastors were committing manslaughter and they deserved to be arrested and prosecuted in the courts of law.
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Genderlinks seek media gender policies
By CHARITY MOONGA –
GENDERLINKS has called for assistance to be given to media houses so that they can come up with gender policies that relate to both content and institutional practices.
The organisation has also urged media organisations to network with other media related bodies to view gender as a priority in media operations.
This is contained in a recent report generated by Genderlinks – Zambia which was launched on December 9, 2016 in Lusaka.
Genderlinks further called for capacity building and training for media on how to create gender aware media content in all news topics.
“Peer learning and sharing at Gender and Media Summits can assist the media to learn from the gender mainstreaming efforts undertaken by others in the industry,” the organisation said.
The organisation also revealed that the proportion of women sources in Zambia at 19 per cent is a five percentage point increase from 14 per cent in 2010 and 13 per cent since 2003, this is according to latest information from Genderlinks.
Genderlinks says that the proportion of multiple source stories at 38 per cent has gone up from 36 percent in 2010.
This is however less than the regional proportion of 39 per cent.
Six media houses in Zambia have joined the Gender Links (GL) Centres of Excellence (COE) for Gender in the Media project.
The proportion of women sources in COE’s at 20 per cent is higher than Non COEs at 17 per cent.
Yatsani Radio has the highest proportion of women sources at 27 per cent. Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) Radio has the least proportion of women sources at nine per cent.
There are more women in newspaper images at 25 per cent compared to women as news sources at 19 per cent.
Women comprise 36 per cent of management positions a proportion higher than the regional average of 34 per cent.
Crime and violence (23 per cent), Economy (21 per cent) and Sports (18 per cent), are given top priority in the Zambia media. Science and climate change (one per cent) are least reported on. Media
Key findings of the Gender and Media progress study 2015 in Zambia conducted in 14 other SADC countries, brought together all research studies that GL has conducted since 2001 into one research study.
The study covered gender in media content, within media houses and in media education.
It was the most extensive single study of gender in and through the media ever undertaken in Southern Africa. Coinciding with the fourth Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) study in 2015, the study also enables
Southern African countries to benchmark themselves against.
In Zambia, the study covered 12 newsrooms, 6private, four public and two community.
Of these, five were print; five radio and two television media outlets.
Independent media monitors conducted the research monitoring a total of 2080 news items on fourteen staggered days in different weeks of April 2015. This provided a much more reliable sample than the one day of monitoring done in the global study.
