Namibia And “only three editorials in The Namibian and New Era in the last year addressed issues of gender-based violence in Namibia”. The international ’16 Days of Activism’ campaign is held from November 25 each year, and during that period gender becomes a major focus in the Namibian media, but this coverage is not sustained throughout the year. While the mainstream media does tend to respect gender and women, Informanté seems to present women in a fairly sexist and degrading way with, for example, its ‘Chick pic of the week’. The impression is that the voices of women in rural areas, trapped in poverty and marginalised, are not heard in the media. Instead the media is to be blamed for focussing on the opinions of men and ‘executive’ and ‘high-flying’ women, as well as those who are ‘politically correct’ and close to the ruling party. As a result, many laudable women’s initiatives in rural areas and those by Sister Namibia, for example, are not covered in the media. SCORES: Individual scores: 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3 Average score: 2.6 (2005 = 1.9) 4.6 Journalists and editors do not practice self-censorship. ANALYSIS: There is the impression that cases of self-censorship do exist in both state and private media, partly as a result of ownership. Informanté, for example, seems to be very partial to exposing others, but does not report on negative stories about the newspaper’s 46 African Media Barometer - Namibia 2007