Executive Summary

Objectives

• To keep abreast of the number of incidents and the type of incidents published on women's issues in the media.
  
• How has the media presented the news on women's issues ?
  
• How have the articles, news, editorials, etc., published in the media affected the policy makers, society, family and the personal individual ?
  
• To provide support to the victims and/or to support His Majesty's Government, INGOs and NGOs to take programmes to the target group through the final report prepared from media monitoring.

All the major newspapers (daily, weekly, monthly) published in Kathmandu are monitored on a daily basis and news, features, articles, editorials related to women's issues are filed in separate headings as per the content of the publication. The topics that have been selected for filing are violence against women, girl trafficking, rape, equal property rights and witch accusation. Other articles on other issues which are very positive and good examples are also selected. Names of writers are also mentioned in order to find out whether the same people are writing the articles and to monitor the progress of SAS workshop participants. Workshops and seminars held on the various issues are also monitored so that one can keep track of how many workshops were conducted and which organisations are working in which sector. Similarly, any findings or new developments are also monitored. The data is entered into the computer and the details can be checked anytime through sorting method. After sorting out all the publications on women's issues, a quarterly media report is published based on the collected materials. After the publication of the report, an interaction programme is held with journalists to share the report. Media people representing the daily, weekly and monthly papers and magazines, the electronic media and freelance journalists are invited for the interaction programme. A discussion is held on both the positive and negative publications which have come out within those three months, their heading, content, gender sensitivity, etc.

Regarding trafficking a total of 115 articles/news were printed in the media out of which 18 publication were allocated the first page. Gorkhapatra published a total of 17 publications out of which 3 publications were given the first page. Similarly, The Rising Nepal published 14 articles/news out of which 6 were given the first page allocation. Both The Kathmandu Post and Nepal Samacharpatra published 13 articles/news out of which 4 and 2 publications respectively were given allocation on the first page. There were a total of 30 feature articles published on trafficking.

A total of 98 publications were published on violence against women out of which 12 articles/news were allocated the first page. Space Time published a total of 18 publication out of which 3 articles/news were given front page coverage. Gorkhapatra published 14 articles/news out of which 2 publications were given the first page allocation. There were three anchors and one editorial published on violence against women in this quarter. A total of approximately 45 women died due to violence during this quarter.

A total of 54 articles/news were published on rape during this quarter. Rape did not get as much coverage as trafficking or violence against women since only 6 feature articles were published on rape. Most of the publications were merely reporting.

A total of 72 articles/news were published on equal property rights out of which 12 publications were allocated the fist page. A total of five editorials were published on the issue. Nepal Samacharpatra published 11 articles/news out of which one was given first page coverage. Similarly, Space Time also published 11 articles/news out of which one was given first page allocation. A total of 30 feature articles were published on equal property rights.

A total of 12 news were published on witchcraft accusation and most of these were brief reporting. There were no feature articles on the issue.

There were many other positive publications especially on women empowerment and women and health in the media.