An Interview with Beatrice Mategwa, Television Director for the UN Mission in Sudan

by NATALIA THOMPSON

Decem­ber 2009

Beat­rice Mategwa is a “one-woman show,” accord­ing to Marie Claire, which named her one of its “Women Who Rock the World” in 2007. At age 37, Mategwa is a broad­cast jour­nal­ist who directs the tele­vi­sion unit of the United Nations Mis­sion in Sudan. Since 2005, she has lived and worked in Khar­toum, Sudan’s cap­i­tal, cov­er­ing the nation’s North-South con­flict. Orig­i­nally from Kenya, Mategwa has also worked as a pro­ducer and reporter for Reuters Tele­vi­sion, focus­ing on con­flicts and human­i­tar­ian crises in regions across Africa; she has also cov­ered sto­ries for the Kenya Tele­vi­sion Net­work and for other media outlets.

This semes­ter, Mategwa has taken a break from her work in Sudan to par­tic­i­pate in Yale’s World Fel­lows pro­gram. On Novem­ber 20, Mategwa sat down with Broad Recog­ni­tion staffer Natalia Thomp­son to dis­cuss her expe­ri­ences as a jour­nal­ist and her per­spec­tives on women’s rights in Africa. Below is a ver­sion of the inter­view that has been edited for clarity.

NATALIA THOMPSON: After col­lege, you worked as a reporter for a news­pa­per in Nairobi, Kenya for three years. How did you make the switch to broad­cast journalism?

BEATRICE MATEGWA: I got an offer from Reuters [Tele­vi­sion], and I didn’t know whether to take the job. I asked my the­sis adviser, and he said, “Take the job, jobs at Reuters don’t come every day.” To me, that was a clear sign that I should take the job. So I took the job, and I haven’t looked back since. It’s been great; I’ve trav­eled so many places [and] met with so many peo­ple who have hum­bled me with their sto­ries, with their struggles.

NT: Were there other women at the news agen­cies where you worked?

BM: [At Reuters] I was the only woman reporter work­ing for tele­vi­sion news, but there were also women work­ing for the photo and text desks at Reuters… At my first TV job in Nairobi, there were a hand­ful of women, so it wasn’t nec­es­sar­ily a man’s domain. I had four women col­leagues there.

“Sudan recently passed an elec­toral law whereby 25% of the par­lia­ment in Sudan will have to be women. For me, I think it’s a bold step…”

NT: After years of work­ing through­out Africa, you’ve spent the last four years in Sudan. What’s the cur­rent sta­tus of women’s rights in Sudan?

BM: Recently, I attended a women’s con­fer­ence in Sudan, and the women were talk­ing about what their role would be dur­ing the elec­tions [in April 2010]. One woman raised her hand and asked, “How do we edu­cate our­selves as women, so we can vote for women?” For me that was an impor­tant ques­tion… I did inter­view some women about what it is that they want, and why it is that they have their own par­ties reg­is­tered. Look­ing at the peace agree­ment and the peace process, I didn’t ignore the fact that women exist in the whole process.

Sudan recently passed an elec­toral law whereby 25% of the par­lia­ment in Sudan will have to be women. For me, I think it’s a bold step for a coun­try that is ready to embrace peace, in a coun­try whereby twenty years of strug­gle resulted in a lot of killings, a lot of neg­a­tive influ­ences on women. Women did suf­fer… I don’t ignore that fact… not because I’m a woman, but because they’re a part of the whole system.

NT: For seven years, you worked for Reuters Television’s East Africa bureau, which spans four­teen coun­tries. How do women’s rights vary among the coun­tries where you’ve worked?

BM: I didn’t focus on women, per se, but look­ing back at South Africa, [the Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of the] Congo, Tan­za­nia, and Ethiopia, for instance, I think women are doing what they can to be able to get their voices heard… It’s good some of the women have raised their voices. Look at elec­tions in Kenya – we’ve had a num­ber of women pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. I don’t think the coun­try is ready for a woman pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, but I think the fact that women were able to go out and cam­paign was an amaz­ing step.

“Equal oppor­tu­nity doesn’t mean, ‘I jump, you jump.’ It could mean, ‘How do we help each other sym­bi­ot­i­cally to ben­e­fit dif­fer­ent genders?’”

NT: In your expe­ri­ence, are issues of gen­der and women’s rights dif­fer­ent here than they are in parts of Africa?

BM: Women here have more oppor­tu­ni­ties because there are more resources com­pared to else­where… In my home vil­lage, Kakamega, a lot of women forgo or sac­ri­fice what they should have for the other gen­der – and I think the world over, that’s what hap­pens with a lot of women… A lot of [Amer­i­can women] real­ize that if they do not do what they have to do, then they won’t get any­where. But they’re able to do that because there are so many oppor­tu­ni­ties, com­pared to where I come from.

NT: You’ve worked in many coun­tries across Africa. Do you think fem­i­nism is rel­e­vant in those coun­tries? Is it more rel­e­vant in some places than in others?

BM: Fem­i­nism has been embraced by dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties around Africa, in dif­fer­ent ways. Some­times, it’s been mis­un­der­stood by dif­fer­ent peo­ple; for instance, a lot of peo­ple sneer at fem­i­nists, because a lot of peo­ple under­stand [fem­i­nism] in the extreme. I think it should just be under­stood for what it is – it should be under­stood as some­thing that is help­ing women get equal oppor­tu­nity. Equal oppor­tu­nity doesn’t mean, “I jump, you jump.” It could mean, “How do we help each other sym­bi­ot­i­cally to ben­e­fit dif­fer­ent genders?”

NT: Do you con­sider your­self a feminist?

BM: I sup­port women’s rights, I sup­port women’s devel­op­ment, [and] I sup­port women’s progress… I think it’s impor­tant to sup­port both gen­ders and let both gen­ders under­stand why it’s impor­tant to be diverse in the thought process… It’s impor­tant to give both the men and the women equal chance. For instance, some­one would say to me, “Hey, you do a man’s job, run­ning around, car­ry­ing cam­eras, film­ing… It’s a man’s job.” But I think, “If I can do it, why not?” I mean, I’m doing it because I love to do it.

Natalia Thomp­son is a fresh­man in Yale College.