Tirana, 17 June 2022 – CRCA / ECPAT Albania presented this morning to the media organisations, journalists and CSO’s, the new Media Guide on Reporting Violence against children, during a National Forum held in Tirana. The Guide is a product of consultations and meetings with journalists in six major regions in Albania, where the organisation has been working for the last year to improve the standards of media reporting on cases of violence against children. The initiative was supported by the “Resilience” project of the Albanian Media Institute, funded by the European Union.
The preparation of the Media Guide was seen as an urgent action, due to the increasing reports of violence against children, as well as the increased interest of the media and journalists to cover these cases. The increase in media attention towards violence against children has been positive, but as the cases where media has made public sensitive data, including the identity of children victims of violence, raised the concerns on the lack of standards of reporting.
Based on this, CRCA / ECPAT Albania chose to sit down and talk to media organisations and journalists in six regions of Albania, sharing experiences and shortcomings evidenced in the media reports. In these info and training sessions, professionals from the child protection system explained the role of institutions and organizations and how all of us, along with journalists, can protect and empower children who survive violence!
ECPAT Sweden expert participating online in the Forum, shared their experience on working with media organisations to set new and better standards of reporting on violence against children.
Child rights experts in Albania since long have expressed their concerns on quality of reporting of violence against children. In several cases, journalists have not met the necessary conditions in interviews the victims or their families, while there have been cases when CSAM has been shown in major online platforms.
CRCA / ECPAT Albania will continue its work in the coming months with media executives to enable the guide to become a guiding document for journalists reporting on violence against children.
For more information, please contact;
CRCA/ECPAT Albania
e-mail: crca@crca.al
