Women's Day: End violence against women journalists

Women's Day: End violence against women journalists

BRUSSELS -- IFJ marked International Women's Day by calling on media organizations and public authorities to confront violence against female journalists.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urged them to provided a safe working environment for women in the media.

In November 2013 the IFJ launched a global campaign to denounce violence against women journalists and alert public authorities on their need to end impunity for these crimes.

"In addition to numerous cases of discriminations in the workplace including gender pay gap and glass ceiling, women journalists are subject to specific violence because they are women. Numerous cases of intimidation, sexual harassment, physical attacks have been reported and we cannot tolerate that those cases are perpetrated in total impunity" said Zuliana Lainez, head of the IFJ working group on violence against women journalists.

The IFJ calls on media organizations and public authorities to take the necessary measures to ensure that women journalists can carry out their job in full security.

It recommends, in particular, that media houses adopt specific policies (if already not in place) to fight against sexual harassment and bullying and accordingly set up in-house committees to ensure implementation in both letter and spirit, adopt proper and severe sanctions against perpetrators of acts of violence in the newsrooms and provide specific safety trainings for women on how to handle physical attacks and threats when working in the field.

The IFJ invites media organizations to take diligent action to address issues related to gender-based violence in news reporting along the IFJ guidelines...