The event was jointly held by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).

Addressing the opening remarks Henning Effner, FES Resident Director in Malaysia Office said that over the past 40 years, FES has been working with its three partners in the Asia-Pacific region including the AIBD, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and the HUM Television in promoting the role of women through the work of media.

He praised the great efforts made by regional media to help raise the role of women in society but stressed that there are still uphill challenges to achieve gender equality especially in the media section where only few women can reach to the top position and a large number of them are being treated unfair and unequally in their works, payments and promotion.

Participants heard Monica Phang, a television producer from the Radio Television Malaysia talked about the gender situation in her media agency as well as in her country. She stressed that the Malaysian Government has done well to support the women. They even create a programme for them to express their opinions on a specific issue.

The Malaysia Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development was officially set up on January 17, 2001 and it soon made a commitment towards the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the 1995 Beijing Declaration, she added.

She also urged the AIBD and ABU to pay more attention to the gender issues, draft guidelines, provide technical training and present annual awards to the women to encourage them involving in the struggle for their equality.

Attendants at the workshops agreed that the role of women in most media agencies in the Asia-Pacific region is still very limited. They do not hold key decisions on the content of any programme.

They discussed ways to change the situation as they were fully aware that a female-concentrated content in a specific programme can not only create an interesting content but also generate a good business result for their media agencies.

Chrissie Tucker, Diversity Manager of the ABC People and Learning, Australia, suggested that gender inequality can only be achieved by recruiting more women and supporting them in their careers.