Safety of Women Journalists

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The preliminary results of our Global Survey on Online Violence against Women Journalists are now available! You can consult them here and download our visuals and GIFs via this link.

The information we gathered from you will be critical to help us identify global impacts, interventions and potential solutions. Thank you for your interest and stay tuned!

Around the globe, women journalists and female media workers face offline and online attacks putting their safety at risk – these attacks can range from harassment, stigmatization, sexist hate speech, trolling, physical assault, rape to even murder. In addition to being targeted on the basis of their work as journalists, they are also the targets of gender-based violence.

Studies have shown that female journalists are targeted online significantly more than their male colleagues, and that the threats they face are highly sexualized, focused on their physical features, ethnicity, or cultural background, rather than on the content of their work. As a result, these threats tend to silence women journalists’ voices and to deplete freedom of speech by interrupting valuable investigative journalist work. They also distort the media landscape by threatening diversity and perpetuating inequalities both in newsrooms and in societies.

A number of recent UN resolutions and reports show that there is growing recognition by the international community of the need to take into account the specific risks women journalists face both offline and online. UNESCO Director-General in her annual request to Member States regarding judicial follow-up of killings of journalists also inquires on specific actions taken by Member States to address safety of women journalists. A summary of the reported measures can be found in the Director-General's Report on Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity.

UNESCO takes effective measures to tackle the issue of the safety of women journalists on three main levels:

Research project on good practices in tackling online harassment of women journalists

UNESCO has launched a global study on measures tackling online harassment of women journalists. The study, led by a consortium of researchers, is aimed at identifying good practices and developing recommendations for all stakeholders (national authorities, social media platforms, media owners and managers, journalist unions/associations, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations and academia). It will include case studies from 12-15 countries, with a focus on the Global South, a global survey and big data analysis.

The study will be a significant contribution to institutional knowledge in this area and will build the theoretical backbone of UNESCO’s work on online harassment of women journalists and help the Organization strengthen its effectiveness as a leading institution in fighting online gender-based violence.

Capacity building on safety of women journalists

UNESCO launched in July 2019 a 300,000 USD project funded by the Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation, that includes capacity-building measures in 4 countries (Senegal, Mali, Sri Lanka and India). The project encompasses trainings for women journalists on safety-related issues and their rights; trainings of media managers; and open dialogues/trainings of security forces on freedom of expression with a gender focus.

Awareness-raising on safety of women journalists

In June 2019 UNESCO organized a conference on online harassment of women journalists in cooperation with Members of the Group of Friends for the Safety of Journalists at UNESCO. Over 200 Member State representatives, journalists and legal professionals gathered to discuss the impact of online harassment on women journalists and to explore practical and legal measures to effectively address the issue.

UNESCO will also launch in 2020 a publication titled #JournalistsToo – Women Journalists Speak Out” which will gather a collection of essays by 12 women journalists from all over the world featuring their personal experiences with harassment and violence. The purpose of this publication will be to raise awareness about the range of threats faced by women journalists, and to show how they resist and fight back against them.

Finally, by awarding the investigative Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya with the prestigious UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2020, UNESCO paid tribute to Bedoya’s tireless efforts in fighting impunity and sexual violence against women.