Some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have called for better reporting of domestic child workers to avoid harm falling on them.
The NGOs, Freedom Fund, in collaboration with Street Project Foundation(SPF), and Cece Yara Foundation, among others, made the call yesterday during the launch of a document titled, ”Ethical Media Reporting guidelines,” in Ikeja, Lagos.
Founder, SPF, Mrs Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, lamented that images and words affect child domestic workers, adding that this is why the law disallows their being reported.
”I’m really excited that we get to do the document. It’s a step in the right direction in protecting child domestic workers from harm,” she said.
After the launch, Ezenwa-Okoro added, there would be follow ups with their media partners to see how the guidelines had been of help to them, adding that they would assess how effective they had been. ”And it will go to show, based on the kinds of reports that we get going forward, that it does protect the rights of the child.”
The book was the outcome of a year’s work involving SPF, Freedom Fund and their partners.
She thanked the Freedom Fund and their implementation partners for making the launch possible.
The Chief Operating Officer, SPF, Eduvie Olutimayin, reiterated on better reporting of cases of child domestic workers’ abuse.She said there was the need to mask the affected children.The guidelines, as the title implies, she said, would guide reporters to do their work better.
She frowned at the mentioning of names and places of victims of abuse as well as use of their photographs, saying that these could affect them in future
”We believe that when we change the narrative, we change the norm. And when we change the norm, we change the lives of these children.
”The children at the centre of this are denied school, denied rest, denied childhood, and in many cases, denied dignity and safety.Yet their stories are rarely told. And even when they are told, they are told wrongly.
”As journalists, you hold the pen, the mic, the camera. You decide what the public sees.You decide whether a story generates outrage, empathy, or indifference.That is why we cannot fight to end exploitative child domestic work without working with you, the media,” she said.
She recalled that for years in Lagos, and indeed across Nigeria, child domestic work has been normalised.We call them house helps, apprenticeships.We post media responses to them on WhatsApp groups, and in the process, we are hiding the face of exploitation behind family framing, culture, poverty, and silence.
She urged media partnership on the eradication of child domestic abuse.”We want to work with you on stories, data, and on campaigns. We want your newsrooms to be a safe space where ethical reporting thrives,”, she said.
The manual highlights privacy, dignity, non-identification child-safe language and responsible images for child domestic workers.
Head of Programmes, Cece Yara Foundation, Mr Damilola Adenusi, noted that issues of social violence are common in the society, calling for journalists’ support to expose and stop them.