JotCast | Seminar on Media and Child Rights with Kavita Muralidharan, Ashwaq Masoodi and Pooja Nair | 1/27/2021

Seminar on Media and Child Rights with Kavita Muralidharan, Ashwaq Masoodi and Pooja Nair

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KS Swati

10:14

Hello and welcome to the seminar on Media and Child Rights. As panellists, we have Kavita Muralidharan, an independent journalist, Ashwaq Masoodi, journalist and long-form writer, and Pooja Nair, a psychotherapist with Kavita Chowdhury, independent journalist and adjacent faculty at the Asian College of Journalism, as moderator.

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10:20

The discussion kicks start with Kavita Chowdhury saying that covering of children in the Indian news media lacks depth.

10:21

"The budget allocation for children paltry is 4.3%. Children don't constitute vote bank hence their issues get ignored- as believed by researchers and policymakers. Looking at the detrimental impact of COVID lockdown, scant coverage of growing violence against girl children, or spike in child marriages or how it is the girl children who had to drop out of school. There's hardly any effort to contextualise children's issues from a gender lens. Looking at children not just as a mass but through gender caste and disability lens and emulate guidelines for journalists," says Kavita.

10:26

She points out a very interesting angle. We see that the media tends to cover crimes around children. And in some cases, they are sensationalised. Even then, the reportage lacks a gender lens.


                        
                            
                                
                                
                                        
                                        Dev
@DevadasRajaram
                                        
                                
                            
                        
                        Seminar on “Media and child rights”, hosted by @ACJIndia in collaboration with @UNICEF, has just kicked off. Follow the live coverage of the sessions at acjnewsline.org and #ACJLive on Twitter.
@ArtForCause @NGOProtsahan @kavitachowdhury @ashwaqM @poojavnair 
                        
                            
                            
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                            
                            27 Jan 2021

10:27

Reporters need to look at, for example in gender-based violence that a major factor in child marriage, as said by UNICEF, says Kavita

10:29

She makes a jarring point, "Now there's some controversy about the raising the age of marriage of girls to 21 but where was the voice of the girls in the editorials and reportage?"

10:30

Should the media report on crimes against children with a gender lens?

Yes (80% | 4 votes)

No (20% | 1 vote)

Total Votes: 5

10:32

Speaker Kavita Chowdhury highlights the role of journalists in reporting.
#ACJLive #ChildRights #UNICEF

10:35

Ashwaq Masoodi chips in, she feels from her experience, the idea of childhood as a socially constructed category is decided by adults.

"We expect them to have innocence and behave in a certain way. If anything deviates from the normal, then it is criminal. The crimes by children might be nothing compared to that by adults but because they are committed by children, they are worse," responds Ashwaq.

10:39

10:40

She continues by saying that when we tag children as criminals, they belong to underprivileged communities. What happens in the end, is that there is more social control on their lives. If we have so much time and space to write about the gory details of the crime, then writing the context should also get space. A crime cannot be justified but it is the job of the journalist to give the whole picture of the crime.

10:41

Talking from her experience, she recalls, that she met children in a juvenile correctional home. She struggled at first. As journalists, we are used to talking to people of our 'level and economic zone', but with children, we have to speak a different more sensitised language. We cannot directly ask them questions until they are ready for it.

10:43

Ashwaq pulls up an example. The boy she met, is very bright. Scored 89% in 12th. He is North Indian. In the Nirbhaya case, we kept saying the juvenile had no remorse. We expect remorse, and without it, we want to try him as an adult.

10:45

She poses a relevant question, "But are we doing anything about the reintegration of these people into the social fabric after they are reformed?"

10:47

Ashwaq sheds light by saying, "When you disaggregate the data around children, you might find that the issue is a gendered one. Like the fact that they drop out, the girls have to do household work during school hours, or when they start menstruating they decide to stay home because of lack of sanitary health services in schools."

10:48

Is reintegration into society in the case of juveniles an important step that could prevent future crimes?

Yes (100% | 4 votes)

No (0% | 0 votes)

Maybe (0% | 0 votes)

Total Votes: 4

10:49


                        
                            
                                
                                
                                        
                                        Aatreyee Mohanta
@AatreyeeMohanta
                                        
                                
                            
                        
                        Rarely do we understand how important context is. 
@ashwqm explains how important it is in just one sentence. 

#ACJLive #ChildRights 

                        
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                            
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                            
                            27 Jan 2021

10:52

Kavita Muralidharan recalls from her personal experience. She says: "Talking about menstruation, I visited Kovallapuram in Madurai. Women have a separate house which they have to stay in while they are menstruating. What is shocking is there were no toilets so defecation is a problem."

10:54


                        
                            
                                
                                
                                        
                                        Suyashi Smridhi
@SmridhiSuyashi
                                        
                                
                            
                        
                        #ACJLive #ChildRights 

                        
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                            
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                            
                            27 Jan 2021

She continues by saying that younger women are keen to have toilets although older women say they have never used toilets.

10:58

Kavita adds from her own experience with a 6-7 month pregnant woman. She heard the conversation between the woman and a doctor. The woman wanted to get her girl child aborted but the doctor had advised against it as it was too late. But, gave her an alternative saying he would kill the child after she gives birth to it.

10:59

"All this is happening because of the dowries that the family will have to give to get a girl married," opines Kavita.

11:00

She states grimly, that women don't have the agency to decide to have the child quotes. Female foeticide is a matter of huge concern.

11:02

Talking about how regional media covers, Kavita adds: "The regional media is not adequately sensitised to cover child issues that clearly affect the children."

11:03

"As a journalist, you need to look at the fact, the coverage that Nirbhaya got most of us still don't know her name and of this 13-year-old kid. To this day, the reporters are not sure that the people who were responsible for it were jailed. We need to arrive at solutions where the media can actually become the voice for the children," states Kavita.

11:05

Should the media itself stop treating Menstruation as a taboo subject and being to normalize it?

Yes (100% | 2 votes)

No (0% | 0 votes)

Total Votes: 2

Pooja adds to the discussion saying that when stories stop becoming events, events of rage only then can advocacy happen, when there is a foundational perspective.

11:06

She poses an interesting question, "When we say gender lens, what does this lens contain?"

11:09

Pooja introduces an interesting perspective that child-rearing is a project of engendering. There are ideas we carry about only having two types of gender, therefore, we have sex correction surgeries for babies who were born as trans. Presence of penis is a man and absence of one is a woman.

11:10

"Simple things like teaching girls how to sit is a part of the project of engendering," remarks Pooja.

11:11

Therefore when we talk about child rights, we will have to talk of gender because that's how important it is to children's upbringing.

11:12

Adding to the boiling point, Pooja points out that there are two major ideas: gender as a matter of inequality and has power embedded in it and then policing of gender, that is 'correction' of children who do not conform.

11:13

Parents need to stop introducing gender and gender roles as a binary to their children.

Agree (100% | 6 votes)

Disagree (0% | 0 votes)

Total Votes: 6

"A trans child is not seen as social distress but indiscipline and abnormality," asserts Pooja.

11:15

"Shame is the fuel of this enterprise of policing shame is such a powerful tool of regulation. You do not need law here shame is working excellently for it," quips Pooja.

KS Swati

11:29


                        
                            
                                
                                
                                        
                                        Sumaila Zaman
@ZamanSumaila
                                        
                                
                            
                        
                        Trans child are at a greater risk of suicide as a result of rejection, bullying, and other victimization. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unshamed conversation. @poojavnair 
#ACJLive #ChildRights 

                        
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                            
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                            
                            27 Jan 2021

KS Swati

11:20


                        
                            
                                
                                
                                        
                                        Aatreyee Mohanta
@AatreyeeMohanta
                                        
                                
                            
                        
                        It is so important to talk about gender and how shaming anyone is never the answer

@poojavnair explains the struggles girl children feel ever since they are born — discrimination at every step. 

#ACJLive #ChildRights 

                        
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                            
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                            
                            27 Jan 2021

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