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.