Opinion | Female journalists paying heavy price for government and social media firms’ failures
- Women in journalism have faced years of escalating threats including physical attacks and online abuse made easier by easy access to social media
- Female journalists around the world increasingly have no security, a phenomenon made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic and opportunistic government attacks
From death and rape threats to doxxing, racist, sexist and misogynistic abuse in the form of text, images and memes is nowhere as sharply visible as in journalism and the media industry. The targets are women who are unapologetic about voicing their opinions and calling out those in power.
In the past few years, organised, coordinated physical attacks and online abuse have escalated threat levels faced by female journalists across the globe. According to “The Chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists” – a report published on November 2 by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) – “online violence against women journalists is one of the most serious contemporary threats to press freedom internationally.”
The report draws upon a survey of 901 journalists from 125 countries conducted by Unesco in collaboration with the ICFJ. Nearly 75 per cent of female journalists reported experiencing violence during the course of their work.
This is despite the progress made after the adoption of a UN action plan almost a decade ago which had concrete measures implemented at the regional, national and global levels. The plan aimed to protect journalists, prevent crimes against them and pursue their perpetrators.
Even so, state-sponsored actors seeding hate campaigns and people united in a common cause such as misogyny have continued to use gender-based attacks to prevent female journalists from speaking the truth or try to invalidate their work.
