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MISA REGIONAL STATEMENT ON WORLD AIDS DAY DECEMBER
1, 2008
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) joins the rest
of the world in commemorating World AIDS Day which falls on December
1, 2008.
The ongoing international theme for 2008 is ‘Leadership’.
The 2007 -2008 theme is aptly named as it recognizes the need
for a strategic vision, for focused and sustained action, for
empowerment and motivation and for accountability in the fight
against HIV-AIDS.
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MISA joins the people of Southern Africa in
calling upon the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
leadership to intensify efforts to curb the spread of HIV-AIDS
as well as assistance to those infected and affected by the pandemic.
This call is in line with public pledges made by the SADC leadership
who undertook to curb the disease to ‘keep the promise’ and ‘stop
AIDS’. As we commemorate this day, MISA calls upon the
media to monitor and hold leaders both in public and private
sectors accountable by reminding them to honour their political
commitments and pledges. Key to what SADC governments promised
is the need for universal access to prevention, treatment and
care by 2010.
In the same token MISA calls on the SADC citizens to make the
same demands for themselves and make personal promises to be
actively engaged in the fight against AIDS by taking measures
to prevent new infections. The starting point is by knowing one’s
HIV status and taking appropriate measures thereof.
In keeping with this year’s theme, ‘Leadership’,
MISA also calls upon its institutional and individual members
from the media to take up the challenge, and fully understand
the epidemic by providing accurate information on HIV and AIDS
and how issues of gender violence and inequality contribute to
the spread of HIV-AIDS. The socio-economic and political marginalization
of women in the region is an issue of concern that has contributed
to the spread of HIV as women are either abused in the home,
workplace, denied access to education, information, treatment
and protection and ultimately have to care for the sick and orphaned.
This phenomenon is prevalent in the whole Southern Africa region.
For this and many other reasons, MISA believes that the media
has a significant role to play in the region’s response
to the epidemic, shaping public opinion and civic engagement
that should be supportive of HIV prevention, care and treatment
efforts. More importantly the struggle against stigmatization,
stereotyping of those infected and affected should extend to
the struggle against all forms of discrimination especially against
women, as noted above, a factor in the spread of HIV-AIDS. In
this vein the media has a responsibility to promote an ethical
and human rights based approach to editorial coverage that gives
a voice to women and men, the youth and children living with
and affected by HIV/AIDS.
MISA fully endorsed the Southern Africa Editor’s Forum
(SAEF) Guiding Principles for Ethical Reporting of HIV and AIDS
and Gender as a form of leadership that is needed in the fight
against HIV-AIDS. In this instance SAEF should take responsibility
by accounting on what its membership is doing around promoting
HIV-AIDS awareness in the media first internally before reaching
out. MISA challenges its members, especially media houses, to
take up the challenge by instituting workplace polices on gender
and HIV and AIDS. As a member and partner within the Southern
African Media Action Plan, MISA calls on its members and the
SADC media in general to implement in-house policies on HIV and
AIDS and Gender as one way of dealing with HIV-AIDS from a personal,
organizational and interactive level.
MISA pledges its commitment to fulfilling its role in the global
response to HIV and AIDS by forging linkages with crucial partners
as well as encouraging the media to lead by example.
On this World AIDS Day, MISA hopes that everyone will show the
leadership required to live up to that responsibility.
Kaitira Kandjii
MISA Regional Director
Windhoek
Tel: + 264 61 239275
Fax: + 264 61 248016
E-mail: director@misa.org
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