Hungary has made progress in improving gender equality in recent years; nevertheless, inequalities persist. Eurostat figures show that Hungarian women have a lower level of participation in the labour market, educational attainment; and, their presence on company boards and in politics is lower than the European average. The gender pay gap is also wider than the European average.
According to Monika Magyar, Policy Officer at the Hungarian Women's Lobby, the Hungarian media do not only reflect gender inequalities, they also help to maintain them:
“From monitoring the Hungarian news media from a gender perspective, we see stereotypical portrayals, under-representation of women and limited influence from women journalists in the newsrooms.”
The Hungarian Women’s Lobby (HWL) is a nation-wide umbrella organisation with 23 member organisations. Through this project a range of measures will be supported, including: media training for NGOs and professional women’s organisations, changes in curricula, studies and training to sensitise the Hungarian media to these issues. In order to achieve this, the Hungarian Women's Lobby will create a Gender Media Network which will include media and communication training for their member organisations, gender media training for journalists and the translation of a media textbook on gender sensitive reporting, with examples from the Hungarian media.
“The project is proceeding well, and the interest and enthusiasm from the participating member organisations are high,” Magyar says.
Working in partnership
The Hungarian Women’s Lobby have three partners involved in the project; the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) in Budapest, the Norwegian Union of Journalists (NJ) and Women of Multicultural Ethnicity Network (W.O.M.E.N.) from Iceland.
The CIJ is providing the translation of the media textbook and will organise a conference in cooperation with NJ. At this conference, NJ will present how it has addressed gender issues within Norwegian journalism.
W.O.M.E.N. will participate at the Hungarian Women's Lobby’s summer university sharing their experiences on recruitment and networking. W.O.M.E.N.’s mission is to bring about equality for women from different ethnic backgrounds.
"Our main goal is to influence the development in areas such as employment, education, equality and domestic violence, and we have long experience doing so," explains Nurashima Abdul Rashid, volunteer for W.O.M.E.N..
About the project
Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway have provided € 108 437 to this project. The project started August 2013 and will end in April 2016.