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Tv & Radio > News & Features Sunday March 26, 2006
What women want
AIR RAVES
By ANTHONY THANASAYAN
WOMEN the world over combined forces – and voices – once again on March 8 to bring media and public attention to their struggles and issues.
The occasion was International Women’s Day (IWD) and like in recent years, the Voice of America (VOA) radio from Washington DC took a clear lead among other broadcasters with its timely stories and absorbing features to mark the day.
The VOA informed its estimated worldwide audience of more than 100 million on US President George W. Bush’s vow to continue working for women’s rights and democracy in countries like North Korea, Iran and Myanmar.
Another report looked at how the trafficking of women, girls (and boys) in Africa and Asia for forced labour and sexual exploitation continues to be a serious global problem.
The one that I appreciated most was a story by a New York correspondent who explored women empowerment issues and the challenges they face in situations such as AIDS and health, poverty and equal right to education.
Radio Canada International from Montreal reported that women’s groups across Canada wanted Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to rethink his position on childcare.
They wanted him to retain childcare agreements signed between Canada’s federal and provincial governments by the former Liberal government.
On IWD, BBC World Service radio from London carried comments by women’s rights activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, who compared Muslim women in Malaysia to native South Africans under apartheid following the recent changes to the country’s Islamic Family Law.
This initial report by Jonathan Kent in Kuala Lumpur was followed up with a second broadcast three days later, which said that Marina’s remarks had drawn angry reaction from conservative Muslim women’s groups in the country.
They argued that “women play a far more active role in all aspects of life in Malaysia than in most other Muslim or East Asian countries”.
At home in Malaysia, Red fm ran a series of interviews with well-known women activists and personalities.
They included Women’s Aid Organisation executive director Ivy Josiah who spoke on women’s rights; All Women’s Action Society president Judith Loh-Koh who touched on violence against women; and Tan Beng Hui from International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia-Pacific.
Other topics discussed on Red included sexual harassment, date rape and domestic violence. The interviews kicked off on March 2 and went on for a week.
The biggest disappointment on IWD was the no-show by the so-called “Queen of the Airwaves”.
Remember Radio Wanita Berhad (Wfm) that began test transmissions in the Klang Valley on FM88.10MHz in January last year?
The Malay/English radio station for 25-year-olds and above had promised to offer listeners “something truly unique” compared to other FM stations.
It conducted an on-the-ground soft launch a month later, assuring everyone that blast-off would take place in April (last year).
But more than a year has passed, with three new FM stations added to our bandwidth (namely Fly.fm, Suria FM and Hot FM), yet there’s still no sign of Wfm, although those of us in KL are able to pick up the broadcast – still on test – on weak signals every day.
So tell us, Wfm, where are you?
Anthony Thanasayan, who was born disabled, is an avid radio listener. His work, training special dogs for the physically handicapped, has been featured on local and international radio. His dogs, he says, help him ‘stay in tune with life’. E-mail him at athanasayan@hotmail.com.
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