More than 100 women journalists, media professionals and filmmakers are expected to participate in the 36th International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) biennial conference in New Delhi from September 15 to 18.
 
Besides India, there will be delegates from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Burma, Egypt, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Cambodia, Philippines, Canada, Uganda, US and UK.
 
IAWRT is an international network of women working in television, film, radio and web-based journalism. Every two years they host an international conference that involves workshops, screenings and professional networking.
 
This year’s four-day biennial conference will kick off on Tuesday with a joint keynote address on ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ by Najiba Ayubi, director of Afghanistan’s Killid Media Group and Asma Jehangir, Pakistan-based human rights activist.

The two speakers will draw upon their long engagement with democracy and human rights in South Asia, with particular emphasis on gender

The two speakers will draw upon their long engagement with democracy and human rights in South Asia, with particular emphasis on gender.
 
The conference will examine the new global media order and, within that, the issue of safety and empowerment of women journalists in an increasingly dangerous and complex media world, according to a statement issued by IAWRT.
 
Today, when the media is censored by governments through international and national surveillance, censored by corporates through media ownership and control of content, censored through society via moral policing and misogynist internet trolling – it has become important to understand how women journalists and media professionals are bracing up to these challenges.
 
Some of the highlights of the conference, according to the statement, are security training for women professionals, launch of a report ‘Gender Mainstreaming: Gender Equality And Social Justice in Public Media’, a feisty debate across generations on being a feminist, screening of IAWRT documentary film on women and reproductive rights, workshops on radio theatre as a tool of change, workshop on fund-raising and project planning, workshop on future media directions and presentation of IAWRT awards for Radio, TV and web.