Following the highly successful challenge issued by the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) to the South African media in the previous years for the coverage of National Women’s Day, the MMP has decided to re-issue the challenge to the media this year: to mainstream women on National Women’s Day. Instead of the media merely concentrating on so called “women’s issues” and only on the celebrations that are set to take place on the 9th of August, the MMP challenges the media to fill their papers, radio broadcasts, television schedules and news programmes with women.

South Africa was the main destination, worldwide, for new asylum-seekers in 2006, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is surprising then, the lack of attention that World Refugee Day and its associated gender issues got from the South African media.

The MMP made a submission to the Section 69 of the Electronic Communications Act to ensure that the Act continues to have human rights presented therein. MMP has made submissions on the original Code of Conduct for Broadcasters, as well as on the SABC’s editorial policies, where it is worth noting that some of MMP’s recommendations were included in the final editorial code currently in operation.

Considering Youth Month provides ample opportunity to highlight issues around children, the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) wished to assess whether this was happening in South African media and if the coverage either violated or enhanced human rights of the children concerned.