At a recently concluded discourse session organized by Journalists For Christ (JFC) Nigeria, Association for Christian Journalists and allied professional bodies on Misogyny and Gender Based Violence, participants made the following recommendations:
That,
• Christian Journalists engage more in issues against misogyny and gender based violence in their reportorial duties and other professional activities.
• The general public be encouraged to make use of social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and others, to react or respond negatively to posts engendering violence, misogyny and other gender based violence acts.
• Parents should discourage their male children from assuming sex- occasioned overbearing positions that make them claim superiority over their female counterparts.
• Tech. companies involved in global information dissemination should be engaged in ensuring that posts encouraging misogyny and other related online based violence acts be pulled down even before they reach sizeable information seekers via the internet.
• At the grassroot levels, children must be trained by their parents/guardians to differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deeds and behaviour before entering the larger society to become exposed to varied forms of behavioural action.
• Houses of Worship should be charged to dedicate some of their sermons and teachings to good sexual relationship management.
• Public outcry against sexually immoral acts should not demonise only female culprits.
• Individual men and women groups should meet regularly to look inwards, as a way of creating and enabling best practices in relationships with the opposite sex.
• Faith in Christ Jesus must be elaborate in the belief that loving one’s neighbour as oneself is atop agenda for good relations, indiscriminate of gender.
In an earlier presentation by the event facilitator, Education Consultant/Counsellor, Mrs. Franca Okpiaifor, participants’ attention were drawn to the importance of boldly speaking against acts of misogyny and online sexual based violence as well as enabling stiff penalties for culprits as a way of alleviating the scourge that had eaten deep into the fabrics of the African/Nigerian society.
The discourse was part of a project being implemented by JFC Nigeria with the support of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and the Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World – German Protestant Agency for Diaconia Development).