By KABS KANU :

MARCH 6, 2013

Sierra Leone is participating at the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which  will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 4 to 15 March 2013.  Sierra Leone will join representatives from Member States, UN entities, and NGOs in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from all regions of the world who will participate in the two-week session . Participants will take part in  a high-level round table, interactive dialogues and panels and parallel events.

The theme of this year’s session is : “Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls,” and the review theme from last year’s session is “the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS.”

According to the UN WOMEN’S website, the CSW  ” is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide. The Commission was established by ECOSOC resolution 11(II) of 21 June 1946 with the aim to prepare recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women’s rights. ”

Sierra Leone’s delegation to this year’s CSW Session will be led by the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare and Gender Affairs, Mr. Mohamed Bai Attilla and will be composed of representatives of the political parties, civil society and the media. The minister is expected to arrive via Washington DC  tomorrow.

TODAY, there was a side-event at Conference Room B , which was a panel discussion on the topic : “SAFETY OF WOMEN JOURNALISTS.” the roles played by female journalists in the coverage of violence and trauma.  The emphasis of the discussion was on the protection of women journalists against targeted attacks , which panelists agreed is an emerging issue that deserves attention. They discussed ways in which adequate protection of women journalists can be achieved.The panel also discussed .The second part of the session featured an interactive dialogue in which permanent Missions, UN observers and other observers exchanged ideas and proposed solutions to the violence to violence against women journalists.

The program was moderated by Gulser Corat , Director of the Division for Gender Equality of UNESCO. Participants on the panel included Ms. Irina Bokova , the Director General of UNESCO; H.E. Ambassador Martin Sajdik , Permanent Representative of Austria; H.E. Mr. Eduardo Ulibarri , the Permanent Representative of Costa Rica; Pamela S. Falk, CBS correspondent and President of the UN Correspondents Association; Elana Newman, Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University; Amy Selwyn Executive Board of the International News Safety Institute; and Lauren Wolfe, Director , Women under Seige at the Women’s Media Center.