Forum of Mediterranean Women Journalists – 4th edition
“Are women’s rights human rights?”
21-22-23 November 2019 in Taranto, Bari, Brindisi
On November 25th it will have been 20 years since the institution of the International Day of Violence against Womenby by the UN. On this occasion the Forum of Mediterranean Women Journalists del will hold a conference on the theme ”Are women’s rights human rights”?. This is the conference programme:
- TARANTO (21 November, 9:30am – 5:30pm) – Aula convegni “ex chiesetta”, Dipartimento Jonico, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ – Via Duomo
- BARI (22 November, 9:30am – 6:30pm) – Aula Leogrande c/o Palazzo Ex Poste, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’– Piazza Cesare Battisti 1
- BARI (23 November, 9:30pm – 12:30pm) – Sala conferenze dell’Ordine dei Giornalisti di Puglia – Strada Palazzo di Città 5
- BRINDISI (23 November, 5pm – 8pm) – Sala Università c/o Palazzo Granafei Nervegna – Via Duomo 20
FIRST DAY – 21 November, in Taranto
(Aula convegni “ex chiesetta”, Dipartimento Jonico, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ – Via Duomo)
9.30pm-1.30pm
Introduction
- Marilù Mastrogiovanni – Giulia giornaliste, ideation and direction of the Forum
Welcome Address
- Silvia Garambois – national President Giulia giornaliste
Institutional interventions
- Rinaldo Melucci – Mayor of Taranto
- Stefano Bronzini – Rector, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’
- Beppe Giulietti – FNSI President
- Raffaele Lorusso – FNSI National Secretary
- Anna Grazia Maraschio – Councilor for Equal Opportunities, Puglia Region
Work opened by
- Pauline Ades-Mevel – Head of European Union & Balkan desk “Reporters without Borders”
PANEL 1 – Women and rights in the Horn of Africa
The testimony of activist Shukri Hussein Warsame and her children, engaged in Somalia to guarantee the right to health for women and children. An extraordinary presence, a touching testimony of life and work.
- Shukri Hussein Warsame and his sons – human rights activists in Somalia
- Yassin Isse Wardere – director of The Voice of America for the Horn of Africa
- Shukri Said – Africa Today, Radio Radicale, Charter of Rome
PANEL 2 – From Tokyo 2020 to Taranto 2026: women athletes and supporters
Presentation of the Manifesto “Women in the Media and in the Sport”
The sports world is not a “friend” of women. In addition to the severe and intolerable economic discrimination between women athletes and athletes, the scarce presence of women in the various disciplines, the insufficient promotion of women’s sport, there is a modest, inadequate and often stereotyped representation of women’s sport in the media “. For these reasons, new guiding ideas for different information are needed.
- Silvia Garambois, Giulia giornaliste
- Mara Cinquepalmi, Giulia giornaliste
PANEL 3 – What rights for Islamic law in Europe
What happens when we try to assert the principles of Islamic law in Europe and in Italy? Is Islamic law entitled to asylum? And again: is it possible to recognise, within the European legal systems, institutions of Islamic law that violate women’s rights? Can civilisation conflicts be remedied?
- Giusy Pizzolante – Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Diparrimento Ionico – University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’
Lunch break
2.30pm-6.30pm
Institutional interventions
- Rossella Matarrese – Giulia-Puglia Coordinator
PANEL 4 – The mafia that is done but cannot be said
The mafias of the “province”, those that fatten away from the spotlights and the media circuses. Stories told by women journalists who defend the facts from those who want to hide them. Paying their price.
- Floriana Bulfon – Repubblica, L’Espresso
- Anna Scalfati – Giulia giornaliste
- Graziella di Mambro – Latina oggi
PANEL 5 – Environment is not a side landscape
From the sea and the sky of Taranto, to the millennial olive trees of Salento to Padua, Vicenza and Verona where the largest aquifer in Europe is poisoned by the PerFluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFAS), which also poisons breast milk and therefore newborns: the study of landscape is the study of the connections between peoples and the Environment. What is destroyed when the Landscape is eradicated?
- Barbara Amurri – Specialist in Oncohematology at S. Giuseppe Muscati Hospital in Taranto
- Daniela Spera – LegamJonici, a member of the ‘Mamme From North to South’ Network
PANEL 6 – Bars and rights, when talking about taboos
The right to talk about oneself, the right to tell. The experience of theatre and cinema with Rebibbia’s “precautionary measures”. If narration restores dignity to the human being, reducing Taboos to dust, the risk is to actually become “dust”. Invisible, censored, removed. As “dust of bars”.
- Daniela Marazita – playwright, director
- Marilù Mastrogiovanni – Giulia giornaliste, ideation and direction of the Forum, director of Il Tacco d’Italia
Unique view of the censored documentary “Dust of bars”, shot with the inmates of the “precautionary” section of the Rebibbia prison.
Closing remarks
PANEL 7 – Amnesty International Italia president speaks
- Emanuele Russo – president of Amnesty International Italy
SECOND DAY – November 22nd in Bari
(Aula Leogrande, Palazzo Ex Poste, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’- Piazza Cesare Battisti 1)
9.30 am-1.30 pm
Introduction
- Marilù Mastrogiovanni – Giulia giornaliste, director of the Forum
Institutional interventions
- Lorena Saracino – Corecom Puglia President and president of the coordination of the Italian Corecom group
- Anna Grazia Maraschio, Consigliera di parità Regione Puglia
- Silvia Garambois – Giulia giornaliste National President
- Luigi Cazzato – Director of the Master’s Programme in Journalism, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’
- Riccardo Noury - Spokesman for Amnesty International Italy
- Alberto Spampinato – President, Ossigeno per l‘Informazione
- Gianluigi De Gennaro – Creativity and innovative center Uniba
Work opened by
- Carlo Verna – President of the National Order of Journalists
PANEL 8 – Women and rights in the horn of Africa
The testimony of activist Shukri Hussein Warsame and her children, engaged in Somalia to guarantee the right to health for women and children. An extraordinary presence, a touching testimony of life and work.
- Shukri Hussein Warsame and her sons – human rights activists in Somalia
- Yassin Isse Wardere – Director for the Horn of Africa, The Voice of America
- Shukri Said – Africa Oggi, Radio Radicale, Carta di Roma
PANEL 9 – Un-veiled Iran: what is the price to pay?
The case of Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes, is the best known. She was punished for representing the legal defence of women arrested in 2018 because they publicly protested against the veil obligation. However, in Iran there are lots odìf activists who oppose the obligation to cover their heads and have to deal with the rights denied them every day.
- Tiziana Ciavardini, writer, Il Fatto Quotidiano
- Maryam Rahimi, writer, Iranian director, author of “Time to change”
PANEL 10 – UN Universal periodic review, what human rights for women in Italy
By November 4th, the UN will have examined Italy on the subject of human rights. In fact, our country is called to do the so-called “third cycle” of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a procedure whereby all UN member states undergo an overall examination on human rights every four years or so.
A network of civil society organisations prepared and presented to the UN rapporteurs a detailed report on the various aspects concerning the condition of women in Italy and the recommendations presented at the UN in Geneva on 11 October. The Forum of Mediterranean women journalists, which is among the signatories of the recommendations addressed to the UN, presents the Report.
- Simona Lanzoni, Grevio and Fondazioni Pangea vice president; President Reama-Rete for mutual aid
- Martina Giulia Daelli, Human Rights Program, ONG WILPF-Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
PANEL 11 – What truth: women, wars, migrants and other manipulated news
For Pope Francis Eva was the victim of a fake news coming out of the snake’s mouth. Since then the hoaxes have not stopped ruining women, if it is true that a woman who has suffered harassment still writes that she has made up a career out of it, while a femicide is defined by the newspapers as “good giant”. The victims of these abuses of information are not just women’s bodies: when it comes to migrants, the truth is pushed to the bottom of the sea, together with the victims of smuggling and trafficking. And the news coming from the war fronts become distorted shreds of facts, folded and manipulated based on the advantage of governments.
- Giuliana Sgrena, journalist from Il Manifesto
PANEL 12 – The Global media monitoring Project: women’s gaze on the media
Media horizons and striptease cultures: patriarchy, and representation of women’s bodies in contemporary society. Among women who make the news, women who write news, and women who are the subject of news: the proposal for a data analysis.
- Brenda Murphy, Department of Gender Studies Research Associate I Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta
- Claudia Stamerra, GR1 Rai
Lunch break
Hours 2.30pm-6.30pm
PANEL 13 – War on the Kurdish people: the role of women and academics
Kobane the city that defeated ISIS dances in the night of Erdogan’s attack in northern Syria. The Kurds do not fall, Kurdish women represented the only bank to ISIS, paying with their lives, suffering violence and mutilation, heinous gestures spread by ISIS on social media. However, the ability of the rebels to create transnational networks can represent a new model of cooperation to look at for conflict resolution.
- Sinem Arslan, Kurdish researcher and activist, Transnational Dynamics of Civil War Peace Processes, University of Essex
- Antonella Napoli, Focus on Africa
- Berfin Hezil, programme coordinator, JIN TV
PANEL 14 – Yemen, Libya, Syria: proxy wars
They do not make the news, because the echoes do not reach fat Europe, if not under the guise of victims at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea. Telling their stories is difficult: in order to collect images and testimonies you have to put your life at risk, because the journalistic visa is granted with difficulty. There is only one way to distinguish fake news and reality: being there.
- Francesca Mannocchi, journalist, author of “Porti ciascuno la sua colpa”
Closing remarks
PANEL 15 – The hate barometer
Women, migrants and refugees are the preferred target of online haters.
A research by Amnesty International analyses the language used on social media by Italian politicians in elections.
- Riccardo Noury - spokesman for Amnesty International Italy
THIRD DAY – November 23rd in Bari (morning) and in Brindisi (afternoon)
- BARI (Conference Room of the Order of Journalists of Puglia – Strada Palazzo di Città 5)
- BRINDISI (University Hall at Palazzo Granafei Nervegna – Via Duomo 20)
9.30-12.30 am in Bari
Welcome Address
- Piero Ricci, President of Odg Puglia
- Bepi Martellotta, President of Assostampa
- Lorena Saracino, President of Corecom Puglia
- Rossella Matarrese, ODG councilor, coordinator of equal opportunities, Assostampa commission
PANEL 16 – Between precariousness and threats: the state of Information in Puglia
A look at the “South” from a gender and generational point of view as regards the worldwide phenomenon of “pressphobia”. Presentation of the results for the research study carried out between professional figures and spectators of Apulian journalism. The research study “Between precariousness and threats: the state of information in Puglia”, funded by the Corecom Puglia and carried out by the Master’s Programme in Journalism – For.Psi.Com Department. – University of Bari, in collaboration with the Regional Order of Journalists and Assostampa, for the first time produced a mapping of regional journalism, seeking a response on the territory to phenomena already detected by accredited national and international studies. Intimidation, occupational blackmail, generation and gender gap, discrimination, sexism and crystal roof: the research analyses and maps the phenomena, the inner and outer perception that it has and the use of information, in an attempt to track their needs and identify new information formats.
For survey research, anonymous questionnaires were given to all women journalists and journalists registered.
The results will be brought to the attention of colleagues and the public opinion.
- Luigi Cazzato, scientific director of the research study, coordinator of the Master’s Programme in Journalism at Uniba
- Marilù Mastrogiovanni, coordinator of the research study
- Francesca Prenna, Francesca Rizzo, Grazia Ciani, researchers
- Anna Piscopo, Luigi Bussu, Saverio Carlucci, MariaMichela Sarcinelli, Michela Lopez, Claudio Carbone, Marìcla Pastore, Simona Latorrata, Michele Mitarotondo, Cristina Mastrangelo: practicing journalists of the Uniba Masters in Journalism
6.00-8.00 pm in Brindisi
Institutional interventions
- Riccardo Rossi, mayor of Brindisi
- Serenella Molendini, National Equality Councilor substitute
PANEL – What truth: Women, wars, migrants and other manipulated news
- Giuliana Sgrena, journalist, Il Manifesto
PANEL – War on the Kurdish people: the role of women and academics
- Sinem Arslan, Kurdish researcher and activist, Transnational Dynamics of Civil War Peace Processes, University of Essex
PANEL – Bars and rights, when telling taboos
- Daniela Marazita – playwright, director
- Marilù Mastrogiovanni – the Milan Charter, for the respect of the rights of prisoners in the journalistic story
Unique view of the censored documentary “Dust of bars”, shot with the inmates of the “precautionary” section of the Rebibbia prison.
PANEL 17 – “Are you sure you screamed?”
Words in the rape and femicide trials in the 17th-20th centuries
- Katiuscia Di Rocco, director of the archiepiscopal library De Leo
PANEL 18 – The freelance war reporter
The story of the Middle East told in spite of everything. Great risks and great freedom: the war report, with no parachute but your own tools of the trade.
- Francesca Borri, freelance war reporter
THE NETWORK OF THE FORUM OF MEDITERRANEAN WOMEN JOURNALISTS
The Forum of Mediterranean Women Journalists is organised by Giulia Journalists, with Idea Dinamica and Mediterranean Journalists Association.
It is financed by:
CO.RE.COM Puglia;
FNSI;
Regional equality Councilor;
Amnesty international
In collaboration with the University of Bari.
Joining the network of the Forum of Mediterranean Women Journalists 2019: National Order of Journalists, Amnesty International, Reporters without Borders, Ossigeno per l’Informazione, Journalists’ Association Puglia, Assostampa, Smurare il Mediterraneo (Uniba), Master ’s Programme in Journalism (Uniba, Department For. Psi Com), Gender Archive (Uniba), Balab-One stop shop (Uniba), Innovation & cretivity center (Uniba), Pangea-Reama Foundation, Renata Fonte anti-violence centre, University of Malta, The Shift news (Malta), Association of European Journalists -Bulgaria, Colleges de periodistes de Catalunya, Czech Center for Investigative Journalism -Prague, Associacio Mon Comunicacio-Barcelona, Creis-European research center for sustainable innovation, Uzbek-German Forum for human rights- Berlin, Radio Radicale.
OTHER BODIES WHICH JOINED THE NETWORK: UNHCR-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies (president Laura Boldrini); Accademia Della Crusca; National Association “Articolo 21”; University of Salento; UsigRai.
PRESENCE TO EVENTS ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION. The Forum is present on the tables of:
Unesco, UN, OSCE, Anna Lindh foundation.
The Forum of Mediterranean Women Journalists is founded by Marilù Mastrogiovanni, an investigative woman journalist