Do the Kenyan media violate children's rights?: an assessment of select content in the daily nation and nation television against the existing conventions and laws on children's rights
Abstract
Children are generally reported in the media as victims of adults' chaos. And in
reporting children the media tends to violate their rights by exposing their identity in
negative stories such as crime and defilement.
Yet, there are laws and conventions that guide journalists on how to write children
stories and a professional code of conduct that specifies children's portrayal in the
media.
But these laws seem to be ignored when reporting children. On the other hand,
implementation of these laws especially the United Nations Convention on Rights of
Children (CRC) was sluggish and there was need to come up with a regional law to
make this international document more applicable to the people. So the African Charter
on the rights and welfare of children was charted from the on Rights and Welfare of
Children (CRC) and in 2001 the Children Act was enacted to guide Kenyans on
children's rights.
This study seeks to establish the extent to which these three conventions ofCRC and
the children's act 2001 have been violated by the print and electronic media of the
Nation media group between the period 2000 to 2007.
A few selected abuse cases, interviews with media and children organization personnel
are used.
The study also seeks to establish the underlying reasons for violation of the conventions
and give recommendations to remedy similar violations in future.
Publisher
School of Journalism; University of Nairobi