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Equipped with mobile phones, tripods on their shoulders and laptops, a group of women in Somalia travels the country in search of stories that aim to raise awareness and break the silence on taboo topics that directly affect them. There are six women who make up the first media outlet that also provides them with a safe space to work and choose what they report, in a highly conservative country with strong discrimination against female journalists.
In the Somali language, “Bilan” means “bright and clear”. It is the name that was chosen for the first media outlet in this country with a gender focus and made up exclusively of women.
It is a project directed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and in which stories are produced for various formats such as television, radio and online portals. The team is made up of six people who come from different parts of the African country: the general editor and five journalists who are not older than 29 and who have experience in local media.
‘Bilan Media’ has a particular focus and mission: to challenge patriarchal norms by producing news and features that focus on women, which is unique in highly conservative and predominantly Muslim Somalia.
This includes local stories and topics that the Somali audience is not used to, such as different types of gender-based violence, and which are often considered too sensitive for public broadcast.
For example, sexual crimes, a scourge that is on the rise in a country that has not approved its first bill criminalizing these acts. However, its members consider that having an exclusively female team has been an advantage in being able to bring to light topics that are still a taboo and about which women do not dare to talk to men.
According to the UNDP, these six journalists also have a training and mentoring program with important names in journalism, among whom are prominent figures from networks such as the British ‘BBC’, or the Qatari ‘Al Jazeera’.
‘Bilan Media’ operates from the offices of ‘Dalsan’, a major local TV and radio station based in Mogadishu, the capital. And, according to its website, its content is also distributed internationally through media such as ‘The Guardian’, the ‘BBC’ and the Spanish newspaper ‘El País’.
They write the scripts, do interviews, edit videos, and host the show. To collect the news material, they only need a mobile phone, a tripod, a notebook or a computer.
A hostile environment for journalists
But in addition to breaking the silence on gender-based violence in Somalia, ‘Bilan Media’ also sets a precedent in the way that women make their way into journalism, since, in addition to providing them with a safe place to work, they have complete independence to choose what they report and how they report it.
According to its editor-in-chief, “for a long time Somali women journalists” have been “treated as second-class citizens and local media have ignored the stories and voices of the population.”
The United Nations Development Program collected testimonies from journalists who have been harassed, denied training opportunities and promotions, or ignored when they reach high-ranking positions.
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