Lalitpur, January 20

Central Child Welfare Board is preparing to introduce guidelines for ethical reporting on child issues.

Atmaram Thapa, project coordinator, CCWB, said they were working on the draft of the guidelines since a year in association with Federation of Nepali Journalists, Press Council Nepal and the Department of Information.

To prepare the guidelines, CCWB has been holding talks with child experts and child right activists and journalists reporting on child issues. Thapa said, “We have already conducted consultation workshop in all the five development regions,” adding, “The first draft was prepared after collecting feedback from the concerned stakeholders.”

The first draft of the GER has 11-point guidelines for journalists reporting on child issues.

According to CCWB, it will hold a final discussion on the draft on January 21. It will also hold an interaction with journalists reporting on child rights issues this week and give a final shape to the guidelines by incorporating their suggestions.

“We will incorporate suggestions from journalists and experts and introduce the guidelines by next week amid a formal programme to be chaired by one of the deputy prime ministers,” said Thapa.

The draft of the guidelines states that media houses and journalists should be sensitive and responsible while disseminating news about children below the age of 18.

It says media houses and journalists should not reveal the identity of children unless extremely necessary and protect their right to privacy.

It also states that the news related to children should not be sensationalised. Offensive content related to children should be avoided, it says.

It has further seeks to avoid use of children in advertisements.

It has also asked media houses to take special caution while disseminating violent images that could have a negative impact on child psychology.