By Kumba Leigh
The story of a child does not end when a journalist files a report.
In today’s digital age, it can live for years in search engines, social media feeds, school communities and public memory. For children caught in situations involving abuse, exploitation, conflict or conflict with the law, a few careless words, a photograph or an identifying detail can become a second wound—one that may never fully disappear.
That was the central warning and challenge at a two-day training for journalists on strengthening media capacity in children’s rights and ethical reporting in The Gambia.
The training brought together journalists, editors, media practitioners, government representatives, child-rights advocates and development partners to examine child-sensitive reporting, legal standards, ethical obligations and the potential consequences of placing a vulnerable child at the centre of a news story.
Organised through a partnership between the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), the Gambia Press Union (GPU) and UNICEF, the training sought to strengthen journalists’ understanding of how to report on children without compromising their dignity, safety or future.
The Media as a Partner
Opening the engagement, IHRDA Executive Director Dr Musa Kika reminded participants that the media is not merely a channel through which information passes. It is a powerful institution that shapes public debate, influences policy and can either advance or undermine the protection of children.
Drawing on his experience as a child-rights lawyer in Zimbabwe, Dr Kika recalled cases involving journalists and media houses that had published the identities of children involved in criminal and civil proceedings.
He also cited cases involving children who had been photographed or interviewed without appropriate consent, as well as victims whose identities were exposed despite legal proceedings intended to protect them.
He said his intention was not to frighten journalists or discourage reporting, but to demonstrate why a stronger understanding of child protection is essential to responsible journalism.
“The media is a partner,” Dr Kika said, stressing that human-rights organisations and journalists should work together to ensure that violations against children are brought to public attention without creating new violations in the process.
He urged journalists to report more, rather than less, on child-protection concerns, but to do so ethically and responsibly, with an understanding of the legal and human-rights principles governing such reporting.
Protecting children, he stressed, does not mean silencing their stories. Rather, it means telling those stories without sacrificing their dignity, safety or future.
When Reporting Causes a Second Harm
Gambia Press Union President Isatou Keita echoed the message, noting that when a child is harmed, it is often a journalist who tells the public what happened.
“How we tell it matters,” she said.
A carefully reported story, she explained, can inform the public and help protect a child. A careless one, however, can inflict what she described as a second harm on top of the first.
Keita said mistakes can travel just as quickly as successful investigations, and for a child, the consequences can be profound.
“A story can reach classmates, teachers, neighbours and relatives before the child or their family has had an opportunity to process what has happened. A photograph or name published online may remain accessible long after the original report has disappeared from the news cycle,” she said.
She urged journalists to consider three perspectives when reporting on children: the child, the journalist and the public.
For the child, she said, a news report can affect how classmates perceive them, how their community treats them and, ultimately, how they perceive themselves.
For journalists, ethical reporting helps protect professional credibility while navigating the pressures of deadlines, competition, clicks and breaking news.
For the public, responsible reporting can improve understanding of children’s rights and move important issues from the margins of public discussion into national debate.
Keita also cautioned against viewing the training simply as an exercise in identifying shortcomings.
Across Gambian newsrooms, she said, journalists are already producing strong and responsible stories about children and women, often without formal training.
The task now, she said, is to build on those good practices and strengthen them.
Children Are More Than Victims
UNICEF The Gambia Country Representative Nafisa Binte Shafique described the initiative as an investment in the dignity, protection and future of Gambian children.
She reminded journalists of the influence they wield, noting that their pens, microphones, cameras and digital platforms can challenge harmful practices, expose injustice, influence public policy and change how communities understand children’s rights.
That influence, she said, carries an equally important responsibility: to inform rather than inflame, educate rather than mislead, and amplify voices that might otherwise remain unheard.
The need is particularly pressing in The Gambia, where children make up a significant proportion of the population and continue to face challenges including violence, abuse, exploitation, school dropout, malnutrition, inadequate water and sanitation, gaps in birth registration, child marriage and other harmful practices.
Shafique cited preliminary 2024 census findings indicating that children under 15 account for about 40 percent of the country’s population, while those under 19 make up nearly 54 percent.
Behind every statistic, she reminded participants, is an individual child with a name, a dream, a voice and a future.
She therefore urged journalists to move beyond portraying children exclusively as victims.
Children, she said, are rights holders, citizens, thinkers, innovators, leaders and agents of change.
The media should tell stories that expose injustice while also highlighting solutions, resilience, achievement and progress.
Perhaps most importantly, she urged journalists to give children opportunities to speak for themselves—but only where doing so is safe, meaningful and in their best interests.
A Child Is Not Content
Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Dr Ismaila Ceesay delivered a direct challenge to media practitioners.
He explained that he had made a deliberate effort to attend the training because, somewhere in the future, a journalist trained through the programme might face a decision involving a vulnerable child, and the choice that journalist makes could affect that child’s life, education or dignity.
He reminded participants that the child at the centre of a story could be anyone’s child.
Journalism, he said, possesses enormous power.
“A story can give a child a voice, expose abuse, reveal exploitation, bring hidden problems into national consciousness and mobilise society to act, but the same tools can cause irreversible damage,” he cautioned.
“A careless headline can reveal a child’s identity. A photograph can compromise their privacy. A sensational account can transform a victim into a public spectacle.”
Dr Ceesay noted that increasingly competitive media environments have intensified these pressures, with journalists facing demands to break stories, attract clicks and generate engagement.
But one principle, he stressed, should never be compromised: a child is not content.
“A child’s trauma is not entertainment, and a child’s vulnerability must never become the currency of media attention,” he said.
The Minister challenged journalists to ask themselves a fundamental question before publishing sensitive material: Is this genuinely in the public interest, or does it merely satisfy public curiosity?
That distinction, he argued, is critical.
Not everything the public wants to know is necessarily something the public has a right to know.
Reporting Without Identifying
Dr Ceesay also highlighted child-protection provisions contained in the proposed Broadcasting and Online Content Regulations 2026, noting that the framework seeks to balance media freedom with accuracy, fairness, safety and the protection of children.
Among the provisions he highlighted were safeguards relating to harmful and age-inappropriate content, interviewing children, privacy and the protection of the identities of child victims of crime.
He stressed that the ability to report on an issue involving a child does not automatically create a right to identify that child.
A journalist may report on a sexual-abuse case, including systemic failures, the response of law-enforcement agencies and its wider child-protection implications, without revealing the identity of the child victim, he said.
The principle, he added, should extend beyond legality to considerations of privacy, vulnerability, stigma, consent and the best interests of the child.
“The child must remain at the centre,” he stressed.
Courageous but Careful Journalism
Dr Ceesay said the training comes at an important time for child-rights reporting in The Gambia.
Issues including female genital mutilation (FGM), child marriage, child labour, child exploitation in tourism and other forms of violence and abuse continue to demand public attention.
He noted that the ongoing legal and public debate surrounding FGM demonstrates how deeply child protection can intersect with culture, tradition, law, religion, politics and human rights.
These are precisely the issues, he said, that require journalism that is both courageous and careful.
For journalists, the challenge is therefore not whether to tell the stories of vulnerable children, but how to tell them without becoming part of the harm.
The most powerful child-rights story may not be the one with the most dramatic photograph, the most revealing detail or the biggest headline. It may be the one that exposes injustice, informs the public and prompts action—while allowing the child at its centre to retain something more valuable than a moment of publicity: their dignity, privacy and future.
