Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has reacted after a Swiss Newspaper issued an apology for referring to her as “grandmother” while reporting that she is the new Director General of World Trade Organisation (WTO).
“This grandmother will be the new Chief of the World Trade Organisation,” the newspaper had written.
This elicited criticisms from all over the world as people questioned why “grandmother” was all she could be qualified as despite her achievements.
Nordwestschweiz recently issued an apology regarding their poor use of words to describe the new Director General of the WTO.
The Communique stated:
In our print edition of Tuesday 9 February 2021, we ran an article on the new head of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The article also appeared in our online edition and in two other newspapers, Luzerner Zeitung und St. Galler Tagblatt, and their online editions.
In our editorial office, we gave the article about the new head of the World Trade Organization the headline “This grandmother will be the new chief of the World Trade Organization.”
This headline was inappropriate and unsuitable. The title sparked angry reactions from readers. We apologise for this editorial mistake.
The author of the article, Jan Dirk Herbermann, did not write this headline, we did not inform Mr Herbermann about this headline. Therefore Mr Herbermann is not in any way responsible for this headline.
Mr Herbermann is our correspondent in Geneva and had filed us the article for publication The original headline that Mr Herbermann drafted was: “For the first time, an African woman moves to the top of the WTO. However, we, the editors, did not use this headline.”
Reacting to the apology, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tweeted that “It is important and timely that they have apologized.”
She tweeted: I am thankful to all my sisters, UN Women Leaders and the 124 Ambassadors in Geneva who signed the petition on calling out the racist & sexist remarks in this newspaper. It is important & timely that they have apologized. @phumzileunwomen, @Winnie_Byanyima.
Her next tweet read: “We need to call out this behavior when it happens. This is precisely what my book Women & Leadership coauthored with @Julia Gillard talks about – the stereotypes women face when they take on leadership positions.”
nawa