Kids’ summit to provide global media policies

Organised under the banner ‘Media as a Tool of Global Peace and Democracy’, the 2007 summit is being co-ordinated by the Children and Broadcasting Foundation for Africa (CBFA) in partnership with the SABC, Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the Department of Communications and Telkom.

The vision and purpose of the SA summit is to produce a global interactive conference to discuss and debate issues around children and media, with tangible, workable and sustainable outcomes, the organisers said.

Victims

As this summit gets under way, millions of children worldwide are being victimised by armed conflicts, hunger, refugee crisis, HIV/Aids, domestic violence, rape, ‘muti’ killings, natural disasters, forced and arranged marriages, female circumcision, forced labour, teenage pregnancy, lack of education opportunities, violent crime, child pornography, juvenal delinquency and illiteracy.

And many observers firmly believe that this gathering will move away from being a simple talk-shop, ‘child playground’ and a set of fancy exhibitions to provide solid guidelines and comprehensive policies for global media – seen as society’s co-called watchdog – as to how to deal best with the abovementioned issues affecting children.

Many independent organisations such as the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) continue to accuse certain sections of local media of being ruthless, too sensational and acting irresponsibly when covering children’s issues, perhaps with the sole purpose of boosting their sales.

The MMP, which admits that covering children is inherently tricky, says that follow-ups on children’s stories are rare and more often children’s experiences are sidelined in the stories and only facts and figures are presented. According to the MMP, this kind of reporting is not in the best interests of the children, and not only serves to marginalise their value and further victimise them but ultimately violate their rights in the process.

’See children, do not hurt them’

However, expectations are high at the 5th WSMC that the participation of leading countries – which bring along their effective and sustainable media strategies for children – will help other nations to improve their comprehensive children’s framework or build new ones, in the view of building sustainable communities that ‘see children and do not hurt them’.

Apart from plenary sessions and interactive exhibitions, parallel workshops are also taking place to enable hands-on training and skill transfer.

The 5th WSMC’s underlying goals and objectives are in line with the objectives of the World Summit Foundation on Media for Children, the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the priorities outlined in the Millennium Development Goals and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Held every three years in different regions of the world, the World Summit movement began in 1995, and the first gathering took place in Australia. Thereafter, the summit was held in the UK, Greece and Brazil.

This is the first time the summit is being organised in Africa. The 5th WSMC ends on Wednesday, 28 March.