KAMPALA - Participants in a Gender media training workshop held in Kampala last week were full of praises for Rwanda’s efforts in promoting gender equality in the Region.

Speaking to The New Times, Rosemary Okello Orlale the Executive Director for African Woman and Child Affairs, said that Rwanda is recognizing the role of women.

She said the country has taken affirmative action where gender equality is respected from the grassroots to the top.

"This portrays the increasing equality in opportunity for women,” she said.

The two-day media training workshop was focussing on the role of media in Gender and Development in East Africa.

The meeting urged the media to promote gender issues, develop a gender policy in the East African Community and within the integration programme.

"Media should play a key role in promoting the empowerment, integration and participation of women at all levels,” said Uganda’s Minister of Information and National Guidance, Kabakumba Labwoni Masiko, while officially opening workshop.

In the workshop, the Red Pepper, a Ugandan tabloid was criticized for portraying women as sex objects.

Journalists were urged to portray women as thinkers and workers and not as sex objects or victims of violence. This is because women tend to be defined in the media in terms of their physical appearance and not their abilities.

The workshop was organized by the Eastern African Sub-region Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) in conjunction with African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWCFS).

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