Improving the safety of women journalists both on and offline

Last year in Perugia, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) led an interactive panel on the use of sexual violence to silence women journalists. The discussion helped to scope the range of ways the issue may manifest, and informed CPJ and the public on next steps facing this issue.

But sexual violence is only one of the threats facing women journalists. According to CPJ data, at least 11 women journalists have been killed for their work in the past two years; the number of women journalists behind bars has jumped; online, women face an unprecedented level of harassment and abuse. In many of these cases, online harassment preceded violence against these journalists.

CPJ will build on last year’s session, and lead a solutions-focused discussion that expands the conversation to address a continuum of violence against female journalists from physical violence in the field to online harassment. We will discuss resources available and effective strategies to protect against violence and threats both physical and digital, recognizing that one can lead to the other. The panel will congregate journalists who have endured a range of abuses in the course of their work, as well as experts on threat assessment and risk mitigation.

In all, the panel aims to empower women journalists against the threats which have at times led women journalists to re-evaluate the types of beats they cover or leave the profession entirely. CPJ will highlight existing safety resources, as well as crowdsource and collaborate on additional ideas.

Organised in association with the Committee to Protect Journalists.