WOMEN-CANDIDATES HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO TV CHANNELS - SOCIAL ACTIVISTS BELIEVE

Women running for the parliamentary elections on February 24 have less airtime on Moldovan TV channels than their male counterparts, states the report on the monitoring of 10 TV channels during the election campaign, prepared by the Center "Partnership for Development".

According to the Center representative Alina Andronache, although the proportion of women-candidates on party lists increased in comparison with the parliamentary elections 2014, their chances to enter the Parliament have not increased yet, due to low positions in the electoral list and lack of sufficient media support.

"The role of media is to inform the population, to educate it, in particular, to change the perception of women's role in the society and family. Women rarely participate in debates, and if involved, then just on the sidelines. There is positive news about women-candidates in news reports, but only those based on stereotypes. Women-candidates are considered in terms of family status, their activity and number of children they have", she noted.

According to the report, only 18.5% of news reports are about women as main heroes of a story, and in 27.2% of such cases they play the secondary role. The highest proportion of women's presence in news reports belongs to the Canal 3 (21%), Publika TV and Canal 2 (по 20%), while the lowest proportion to - N4 (9%), PRO TV (15%) and Prime (16%). As for the talk shows, the situation is the same - 80% of the main personalities are men.

The authors also stressed that the higher the ranking of a canal the fewer women participate in debates. Even when women are invited to debates, the timing of the debate rarely falls on prime time. As for the visuals on TV, it seems that the equality is observed, however, the visuals with women-candidates are broadcast in the most unpopular hours.