SECTOR 2 Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 1.1 2.7 All media fairly reflect the voices of both women and men. The Union of Congolese Women in the Media (UCOFEM) has undertaken a study among media stakeholders in order to determine the percentage of men and women in media and in media content. The result of this study highlights that only 5% of those intervening in the media are women, doing so mainly on matters relating to education and health, and that only 22% of women in the media sector work as professionals. A number of reasons explain this rather low figure. The first one is related to women’s in/ability to pay the cost for airtime and secondly skills called for by the media being unavailable when required. It is necessary to point out that very often, people who feature in Congolese media are charged. Women tend not be very interested in “women, gender, family” columns, even when the news focuses on them as on the occasion of 8 March, which marks International Women’s Day. In fact, these columns tend to disappear from certain newspapers, due to a lack of journalists to write them. According to professionals consulted, the issue relates to the perspective. From this point of view the media don’t always centre their topics on women or men but rather on the latest news and news of interest to those with purchasing power. Political news, however, sell and unfortunately, women are not interested nor do they feature much in it. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER Democratic Republic of Congo 93