New report highlights gross human rights violations against female journalists

The report, which is titled Soft Targets for Abuse and was released on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, found that the leading human rights violation against women was emotional abuse. Of the 166 female respondents, 47% revealed that they were emotionally abused through verbal and written threats. This was followed by sexual abuse, which stood at 23%, and cyberbullying at 21%.

According to the report, media managers were among the leading perpetrators of violence against female journalists, which included emotional abuses, discrimination in pay and benefits, and sexual harassment.

The report further revealed that 41% of female journalists who faced these violations did not receive any form of support before and after the violations because they either did not talk about what happened or they handled it themselves. Of the respondents, 44% said that they were not aware of any policy at their media house (place of work) on the safety and security of female journalists.

Rosemary Mary Kemigisha, a senior human rights officer with the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), emphasised the need to tackle some of the challenges female journalists are facing, such as sexual harassment.

“There has been an unequivocal recognition that there was a gendered dimension and impact of attacks on journalists that was yet to be effectively tackled. Thus, the safety and security of women journalists needed to be prioritised by every state, organisation, or even individual advocating for human rights,” she said.

She adds: “Various research has established that, unlike their male colleagues, women journalists face a triple threat of violence due to their gender identity, the general safety risks experienced by all journalists, and the risks relating to their professional work. This is even more pertinent now with digitalization, because the emerging issue is that the hitherto safety issues offline were also transferred online with the general digital migration.”