UNESCO advances gender equality in Moroccan TV

RABAT, Morocco, November 17, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- UNESCO's Office in Rabat, the Medias Training Centre and the Casablanca School of Journalism and Communication organized a training workshop on gender sensitive scriptwriting on 10 and 11 November 2011 in Casablanca, Morocco. This activity took place within the framework of UNESCO's programme to promote gender sensitive media content in the Maghreb countries.

Seventeen trainees from media organizations and journalism schools participated in the workshop, which was animated by Catherine Touzet, a French scriptwriter known for her fiction productions for TF1, France Télévision and Canal+.

Economical, social and political situation of Maghreb women has consistently changed since the last 20 years. However Maghreb media remain steeped in the socially built inequalities and do not adequately reflect the realities of women in the societies. “Glass ceiling” is the major obstacle for women's self-empowerment and improvement of their representation in the media. Women's image remains stereotyped and their points of view are often neglected. All these topics were addressed at the workshop.

At the end of the training, participants produced a TV fiction script that took into account the gender perspective based on UNESCO's guidelines, Women and television in the Maghreb, aimed at improving women's representation in the Maghreb TV productions.

This workshop was part of UNESCO's overall strategy to raise awareness of media professionals and to increase their capacities to advance gender equality in their productions.