KABUL (Pajhwok): Participants of a two-day workshop in capital Kabul on Saturday termed media’s role in promoting awareness about elections as essential and demanded more work to encourage people particularly women to actively partake in the upcoming polls.
Speaking on the occasion, Palwasha Hassan, head of the Afghan Women Education Centre (AWEC), said the role of media in spreading awareness specially among women regarding the importance of elections and transparency was important.
She said AWEC had sponsored the workshop “Media Response on Gender Equality during Elections” for 60 journalists to effectively cover the election process.
A representative from the UN Women also participated in the inaugural ceremony of the event and termed the workshop as essential.
He said journalists who participated in the workshop would play an effective role in the coverage of election process.
Fahim Dashti, head of the Afghanistan National Journalists Union (ANJU), termed media’s role in elections as vital and added the Independent Election Commission (IEC) did not cooperate fully with the media and had failed to provide information on time to the media.
He said if the IEC wanted to increase public awareness specially among women regarding elections, it should increase its interaction with the media.
Danish Karokhel, Pajhwok Afghan News editor in chief, termed the workshop as important in terms of spreading awareness among people and said problems and challenges that plagued the elections needed collective efforts from the media to deal with.
“Media should be careful in publishing footages and photographs of women and should not make them public without their permission,” he said.
Karokhel stressed an effective media role in spreading awareness regarding elections and strengthening women’s role in the democratic exercise.
He said it should be kept in mind that women candidates had limited resources and media outlets should keep balance in disseminating candidate-related information and massages.
He also urged media outlets to reduce the price of election advertisement for women. He said Pajhwok has created an SMS section for women candidates.
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