Globalisation and the explosion of various forms of media and new information technologies have contribution to the fast promotion of ideas and values at the local, national and global levels in a scale and intensity never before experienced.

The media plays a very important role in conveying and drawing the publics attention to womens issues, concerns and actions. On the same token, the media has the influence to exclude womens issues and make them invisible.

Globally, womens organisations have voiced their concern over the gender stereotypes portrayed by the media which often are as sex objects, beauty objects, as homemakers or as victims (of violence, poverty, natural disasters, war and conflict.)

The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) spells out two strategic objectives in regard to women and media that are aimed at promoting womens empowerment and development:



Generally, the PNG mainstream media has being vocal on womens issues and has informally adopted an advocacy role in raising attention to womens concerns such as the recent attention given to domestic violence which led to the presentation of a petition to Parliament.

While the media mirrors what is happening in societies, it also reinforces stereotypes of how women are viewed both as victims and perpetrators of violence. It is in this regard that news media must exercise gender sensitiveness because they play a major role in shaping public opinion and public policy

So while on the one hand the PNG media brings womens issues onto the national agenda, its reporting particularly of crimes against women reinforces gender stereotypes and erases womens issues off that agenda.

The following are examples of common oversights in everyday reporting of sexual crimes against women in the print media that needs to be addressed in order to effectively challenge the perception of violence against women and change societys tolerance to violence.

Firstly, The identification of female News subjects in terms of their family status.

According to the Global media monitoring project, 17% of women in the news are described as wife, daughter, mother etc while only 5% of men are described as husband, son or father as evident in the following news items.

A mother-of-two employed with Chemica Ltd, was arrested and charged with allegedly misappropriating K37, 483.62.
Mt Hagen metropolitan commander Chief Supt Theodore Muriki said a 31-year-old woman from Central province was arrested by police at the Gera roadblock in the Simbu province last Tuesday. (National 29 April 08)

A man and a woman in West New Britain Province have been arrested and charged by police for being involved in the production of pornographic materials. The 39-year-old public servant was charged for producing and circulating the materials around Kimbe Town while the 38-year-old woman who is the mother of six children, was charged for starring in the movie. (Post Courier 15 Feb.)

So while men are identified and valued as individuals, women's status seems to be drawn mainly from their relationship to others. Here the media reinforces that women have no status in society and any form of authority they have is drawn from their relationship with others.


Secondly the Attitude of blame is usually placed on women.

The media serves not only as disseminators of information and messages but also as interpreters, advocators and supporters of certain social political and cultural values. In addition, the media can play a role in eliminating discrimination against women. The recent media attention on the pornography scandal in East New Britain raised prominently womens involvement and implied to society that women were responsible for the rise in pornography. The following extract from a story about three Lihir employees jailed for pornography charges, shifts the blame onto women.

Police exhibits of the two women produced before the court showed no signs of shyness or emotional stress. Both were relaxed and comfortable.
Your actions directly contradict our customary norms and practices, specifically of the Lihir and Tanga societies.
Many families throughout Papua New Guinea have been affected by such practices, Mr Lavutul added.
In February this year, Parau and Daruntoi on two separate occasions went to Nialims room to fill out job application forms for employment with Lihir gold.
However, the court heard that once inside the room, they took off their clothes and posed in front of the camera for Nialim.(National 14 April)

By placing the magistrates quote after reporting on the police exhibits of the two women, tips the scales almost immediately, placing the women as key perpetrators while the man who is equally guilty of the crime simply fades into the background.
This contributes to the belief that mens action must have been provoked by women and women deserve punishment and therefore male violence or crimes is justified.

The third area of concern relates to reporting of sex crimes.

The myths widely accepted in American media that women are victimized because of their careless behaviour appears in all societies today. In most instances women are advised to take necessary precautions for their safety implying that men have no control over their sexual desires and that this is an accepted norm of life.

In terms of reporting, the common usage of the sentence had sex with in sex crimes need to be changed as it has serious implications. The following story of a man arrested on sex charges of a child is reported as follows:

According to a police statement of facts, the defendant who was a forest officer had allegedly taken the six-year-old to the official residence of a Member of Parliament and repeatedly had sex with her.
Eye witnesses stated the suspect and the young girl were in the house for two hours.
The girl told police while they were in the house the suspect had sex with her in two separate rooms. (Post courier 1 Feb)
To report that the suspect had sex with her implies that the 6 year old child, willingly consented to sex and downplays rape as an evil hideous act that crushes the very soul of a woman let alone a child, and sends them into a physical, mental and emotional prison that only death can take away. Rape is rape and must be reported as such. No child, or woman is ever a willing party to rape.

Another common oversight is the use of the terms, suspect, defendant, gang and man or men in rape stories. The following news item reports on five cowards who punch, drag and raped an 11 year old girl.

An 11-year-old girl was abducted from a dance at Nawae Block and taken to the Bumbu River banks where she was raped by five men last Monday night (National 17 April).

There is nothing manly about five grown, cowards who weigh an average of 70 kilograms each overpowering a tiny, unarmed, defenceless petite little girl and raping her.
Such acts are cowardly and therefore those involved should be reported as gutless, weak or cowards. By referring to them as men glorifies their act and raises their status in the underworld while the child in this story becomes the talk of the street, pushing her further into isolation and shame. It is time the media shifted the balance of power and blame onto the perpetrators by referring to them correctly as cowards, weaklings or gutless beings.

Just as gender needs to be mainstreamed in government, it needs to be mainstreamed in the media.

The challenge now is for the media to change the way it portrays and represents women in its editorial content and programming and take the lead in sowing seeds of change.

Until it does, the media cannot be used as an effective and credible tool to advance messages on gender equality, if the messages it sends daily through reports on events and issues are gender-blind.