“Half of the World, and a quarter of the news,” a new study stating that women appear only in 26% of news materials

The study is the latest version of the global media monitoring project prepared by the World Association of Christian Communication Communication, and with the support of the Victory Program and the Building of Alliances and Manual Work (ACT) to end violence against women of the United Nations Women.

The Women’s Commission said that women are half of the world’s population, however, representing only a quarter of those who see or hear their voice in the news, adding that this statistic has almost changed in the past fifteen years, with a slight change of only nine points in 30 years.

She pointed out that what raises anxiety is very much that gender -based violence hardly appears in the news, despite its impact on half of the world’s population, as less than 2 out of every 100 stories cover the abuse that many women are exposed to.

No complete story without the voices of women

The new study also revealed that only 2 out of every 100 stories clearly challenge stereotypes, which confirms that the media is still an obstacle to gender equality by enhancing existing biases.

Curcy Maadi, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Women “When women are absent, democracy becomes incomplete.”Calling for “A radical review of enabling the media to play its role in promoting equality. Without women’s voices, there is no full story, no fair democracy, no permanent security, nor a common future.”.

The study showed that despite the disturbing image, progress was made in some areas. For example, women now make up 41% of correspondents and correspondence in traditional news articles, which is an improvement of 28% compared in 1995.

The importance of this is that the stories that journalists usually consider women (29%) more than the stories that men consider (24%).

The official at the United Nations Women’s Authority said: “We will not back down until the voices of women in every news room and every story are heard.”.