violence in newsrooms reported globally

Ruth Butaumocho Gender Editor
Recent studies done across the world — Zimbabwe included, show that women in media face various forms of violence at their workplaces, with their bosses being the major perpetrators. In a Gender Discrimination Survey in Zimbabwe media report by Media Monitoring Africa, sexual violence was highlighted as a major issue affecting female journalists.

This position has been corroborated by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s global survey — in conjunction with the International News Safety Institute — on violence against female journalists.

In most cases, the main culprits are male bosses and victims are usually junior staff, interns and freelance journalists.
Participants at a Unesco side event to the on-going 58th Commission on the Status of Women conference in New York also heard that female media workers women faced various forms of abuse.

Elisa Lees Munoz, executive director of the International Women’s Media Foundation, said at the weekend the violence was physical, verbal and sexual.

The survey, titled “Violence and Harassment against Women in the News Media: A Global Picture”, was conducted online and was premised on 1 000 responses.

The report identifies trends among reported incidents and offers suggestions about what individuals and organisations might do to mitigate the dangers of reporting in hostile environments and provide a safe working environment.

More than 75 percent of respondents cited male superiors, colleagues and news sources as perpetrators of physical, verbal and sexual violence.
Although most victims said they were traumatised by the incidents, only one-third made police reports.
Fourteen percent of respondents said they had experienced sexual violence.

For 40 percent of these, such abuse mostly occurred in the field while 24 percent occurred in the office.
Of those media women who experienced sexual violence, only 20 percent had reported these incidents for fear of victimisation.
Sexual harassment in the media mainly takes the form of unwanted comments on dress and appearance, crude jokes and invasion of physical space.

Most reported that the harassment is on-going.
With the advent of information communication technology, female journalists also face threats through online media, what is known as cyber-bullying.