The IJU had sent this message on International Women’s Day and it sums up the union’s thrust on Gender equality. We believe:

“The Indian Journalists Union is committed to gender equality. While there is no doubt that women by and large have made enormous strides in the profession and broken the glass ceiling, they have for reasons best known to them shied away from sharing the responsibility within the unions. The IJU has always and shall continue to reach out to the women journalists. “Join us and strengthen our voice.”

The IJU has been striving to get women journalists to become members of its various State unions across the country. The progress, over the years has been rather slow. In fact, while there is no denying that the membership of Unions is impacted by the contract system, the number of women journalists as members of Unions seems to come down, at least in the metropolitan cities, in comparison to the past. However, in its endevour to draw the women and encourage them to take up leadership roles the union has set up a Gender Equality Cell at the National level with membership from State units as well as ensure they do have gender cells in their respective unions.

Another aspect that the IJU is working on is to ensure that the media organisations set up the Internal Complaints Committee as mandated by the law to check sexual harassment at workplace. State units have been requested to take it up with their respective managements. Sadly, private organisations including the media houses, have largely ignored the law and the Union feels that it’s incumbent on Ministry of Women and Child Development to ensure that the organisations comply with it.