As negative stereotypes and prejudices are most easily created but also dismantled at an early age, it is extremely important to continuously teach children and youth about the values of respect for human rights and equality, said the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković, addressing students at this year’s Mediamocracy camp.

As the dominant topic of this year’s camp, in addition to youth media literacy and content creation skills, was also the topic of gender equality, the Commissioner spoke about the practice of the institution, emphasizing that, although significant progress has been made in the past period in the promotion of gender equality, it is a fact that women in Serbia and still in a disadvantageous position compared to men in all areas of social life.

She pointed out that the development of modern technologies and methods of communication, in addition to faster and better information, has also become a source of negative phenomena such as cyber misogyny and abuse, hate speech, and “revenge pornography”, but also that technology, the Internet and social networks can be a powerful a tool in the fight against gender-based violence, for which numerous applications are already being used.

The Mediamocracy camp, held for the third time, this year brought together fifty young people from different regions of Serbia, as well as from neighboring countries – Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, active in civil society development practices, and was organized in cooperation of KOMS with the Deutsche Welle Academy and other media organizations.