After different steps have been taken by the Uganda Media Women Association UMWA to help female journalists on how to overcome the challenges and violations faced at their places of work and away from work, UMWA has finally introduced an online platform known as the Safe Report Ug which is aimed at helping female journalists safely report these violations and get help.
Many female journalists have been going through different forms of violations such as sexual, mental, physical and other forms but most of them suffered in silence since some did not know where to report and others did not have any alternative since the bosses they would have reported to are the leading perpetrators, yet they don’t want to lose their jobs.
After doing thorough research, UMWA thought of means on how to help journalists get a safe space during their work and among the steps they took was to train female journalists on how to keep safe at their media houses, online safety, protecting themselves against sexual harassments, Gender based violence and it’s associated effects, media and the law among other topics to help open the minds of female journalists about the violations they go through and how to overcome them.
UMWA did not only stop at training female journalists around Kampala but they moved to different districts and succeeded in engaging and training female journalists on how to pursue their work amidst these violations but most importantly how to protect themselves.
Additionally, UMWA embarked on engaging media managers through visiting different media houses in the country in on site engagements to find means of how to create a safe space for female journalists at work, since some of the top managers directly involve in such violations.
As if the trainings and engagements were not enough to create a safe space for female journalists while doing their work, UMWA took an extra mile to establish an online platform and named it the Safe Report Ug to help female journalists who could not report to their perpetrators or did not feel safe sharing their violations with anyone, to freely, safely and easily report through the platform and give UMWA a chance to directly get into their issues and provide help.
Through this platform, UMWA wants to get detailed information about the violations, victims or witness who can report on behalf of the victims, perpetrators and find safe means of helping the victims since many of them require medical attention, others judicial assistance and other forms of assistance.
Today, January 16th 2024, UMWA has revealed to the female journalists and all other people around the country that the Safe Report Ug platform is ready to be used so they can download on their phones and gadgets and start sending in the details of their violations and get help. This has been done through a virtual training and meeting with female journalists from different media houses around the country and showed them how the platform works, and for them to go out there and train fellow journalists and individuals on how to use the platform.
According to UMWA hopes are high that this platform will help to expose perpetrators thereby reducing the rate of violations in media houses and in so doing, female journalists will be given space to safely carry on their work.
UMWA is planning an SMS free platform and a toll free number for the people who don’t have smart phones, so that they can also share their violations and challenges the same way the people with smart phones will, as no one will be left behind.
During the virtual meeting, the UMWA communication and Advocacy officer Brenda Namata expressed that this is the application that UMWA is presenting to female journalists so that they share what they go through and UMWA gets a starting point for them. This is to help them directly in what they go through or help to prevent others from going through the same challenges. Brenda encouraged female journalists and the witnesses to use the platform since it will be helpful to overcome their challenges.
This platform was developed between September and December 2023 and it is supported by the Canadian fund for local initiative.
