PESHAWAR, Jan 10: The participants of a consultative meeting here on Tuesday stressed the need for close liaison between media and civil society organisations to highlight violation of human rights, help maintain self-respect of the victims and play role in implementation of the relevant laws against offenders.

The dialogue 'Gender sensitise reporting' was organised by White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan, an international NGO, in collaboration with Women's Empowerment Group and British High Commission.

A large number of journalists and members of different NGOs took part in the discussion and discussed different aspects of reporting.

The White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan country director, Umer Aftab, said on the occasion that the main focus of the dialogue was to raise awareness about gender sensitivity among men and boys belonging to different sections of the society.He said the organisation had initiated many cause-specific programmes and activities in different areas of the country to create a gender sensitised society.

Mr Aftab said that the organisation had carried out media sensitising campaigns regarding violence-hit women throughout the country and had given chances to people from different walks of life, especially religious scholars and journalists, to give their input in that regard.

Rana Malik, an educationist, said that more than 8,000 cases of violence against women were reported during the last two years. She said that there were several unreported cases related to violence against women. 'A man, who tortures women, can't be called a brave man but strong men are gentlemen,' she added.

During the discussion journalists and members of NGOs were divided in four groups to give presentations on civil society's expectations frommedia and media's expectations from civil society.

The members of a group put certain suggestions and recommendation for effective media and civil society organisations liaison and highlighting women issues.

The participants urged media to avoid propagating cases of violencehit women and use of harsh words in reporting. Ill-treatment with the violence cases was creating several other issues to violence-hit families, they said.

They stressed the need for proper implementation of the relevant laws and regulations for protection of women in the society. Enforcement of laws was essential to prevent the growing incidents of violence against women in the country, they added.

The participants said that media should play positive role for highlighting women issues instead of giving the cases a wrong angle. One should not be biased while reportinga story, they added.

The participants underlined need for research-based reporting regarding women issues and called for developing proper liaison and coordination between civil society organisations and mediapersons. They suggested referral mechanism for sharing findings and facts about research study on women issues.

The participants agreed on devising basic gender sensitive code of ethics for media reporting, including protection of women, right to privacy and keeping check on their pictorial representation.

They also recommended expansion of women related topics to reinforce their positive role in the society.

The stakeholders also stressed the need for keeping in view the importance of authenticity, relevant laws, repercussion, impartiality, reasonable words of language, factual position and media ethics while reporting a story.