UNMISS Trains South Sudan Journalists In
Child Protection

By Simon Deng
Journalists practicing in South Sudan have today concluded a three-day training
organized by UNMISS to fine tune their ability in accurate reporting with the main
deal appended to minimizing harm to minors involved in news events.
Afred Orono, the child protection officer for United Nation Mission in South
Sudan (UNMISS) told the training participants on Thursday from Juba grand hotel
during the closing of the training that the media is a very crucial part of child
protection mechanism.
“We understand the importance of media on child protection, child protection is a
collective effort and you are our partners who should have a good, credible,
objective, accurate and timely, not sensational voice,” said Orono.
Mr.Orono advised journalists to build trust among their listeners, viewers or
readers by banishing the technique of exaggeration and concentrating heavily on
facts based writing and truth telling in every article they pursue.

“You need to be trusted by your listeners and readers, each time you are sending
information that is exaggerated, people are not going to listen to you, if you tell
the truth even your enemy will trust you,” he outlined.
The three days training that brought together journalists from 10 states of South
Sudan and three administrative areas was coordinated by union of journalists of
south Sudan, the national Disarmament,Demobilisation and Reintegration
Commission, South Sudan People Defense Forces with support from United
Nation Mission in South Sudan.
The president of South Sudan Journalists’ union Mr.Oyet Patrick, exerted to this
website that the UNMISS training has been so enriching to the media
practitioners although he waved a flag of additional training to improve on the
professionalism
“It is exactly what we want, we would like every journalist to have their capacity
built, when we go to journalism school, we go and study how to write news but
we are not expert in law, for example, in child protection, in economic we are not
expert, and so forth, there are specific areas in which we need more capacity
building,” said Patrick
Oluku Holt, the head of child protection for national Disarmament,
Demobilization, and Reintegration Commission said his commission is ending
recruitment of children into armed forces, noting that child protection concern
and alleged child abuse offence by military will be things of the past in South
Sudan.
“We are happy that UN family has recognized our commitments and efforts, we
have been moving from training centers to cantonment sites, because of
sensitization and awareness raising made to people, the issue of children
associated with armed groups will be history,” said Holt.