On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, ARTICLE 19 launches a new briefing From impunity to accountability: Investigating tech-facilitated gender-based violence against journalists. The briefing calls for an urgent and comprehensive response from states to counter online threats posed to women journalists, so they can safely exercise their rights to freedom of expression and gender equality in an increasingly hostile digital landscape.
November 25 marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the start of 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. This year’s theme, #NoExcuse for online abuse, reflects on the growing threat online harassment and abuse pose to women around the world.
Surveillance, doxxing, identity theft, deepfake sexual content and other digital threats are a daily occurrence in the lives of women journalists globally. They threaten not only their physical safety, but have grave repercussions on freedom of expression, media freedom and non-discrimination. In many cases, online abuse drives women journalists out of online spaces entirely, or stops them from reporting on issues that could expose them to greater harassment.
When online harassment and abuse is coupled with gendered attacks, women journalists face significant barriers to justice – despite the gravity of these abuses. Public authorities frequently fail to take online harassment seriously, and law enforcement often lacks the understanding, capacity or will to investigate such cases effectively. These types of online harms are often perceived as separate from or less severe than offline attacks, even though they often precede or occur alongside offline violence.
Existing international human rights law and standards provide important guidance on the obligations States have to prevent, protect against, and provide redress for violence and harassment targeting journalists, as well as on preventing and addressing violence and discrimination against women.
Our new briefing, part of the Equally Safe: Towards a Feminist Approach to the Safety of Journalists project, highlights that more needs to be done to ensure effective investigations into abuse are conducted with a gender intersectional approach, given the distinct and specific risks faced by women journalists.
In the briefing, we offer actionable guidance on how States can uphold their human rights obligations to ensure that law enforcement authorities respond effectively to tech-facilitated gender-based violence against women journalists, while protecting and respecting freedom of expression.
Because silencing women journalists threatens the right to information for all of us.