TORONTO -- March 2021 marked a grim milestone in violence and harassment towards female journalists, according to a report by the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ).
The group recorded 111 instances of violence, including deaths, harassment, assaults and arrests of female reporters working worldwide, the highest numbers ever recorded in a single month.
Three female journalists were killed in March, shot by fundamentalist terror groups in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Four Mexican photojournalists were assaulted and detained by police in Mexico City while covering events surrounding International Women’s Day and at least six women were attacked in the field while doing their job in Turkey, El Salvador, Montenegro, Bulgaria and the U.S., the group states in the report.
The CFWIJ reported 10 cases of female journalists arrested or detained in March, the majority of which occurred in Turkey, with other cases in Belarus and Egypt.
Major death threats were recorded against at least three female journalists. Canan Kaya of Turkey was threatened after a social media post on Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul convention, Natalya Zubkova of Russia fled the city of Kuzbass with her young daughters after death threats, and Fatima Roshanian of Afghanistan was named in a “kill list” issued by the Taliban, the group said, forcing her to work from home.
The group recorded 21 cases of workplace harassment, 20 of which occurred in a Turkish organization, and one in Croatia. Thirteen women reported legal harassment, the majority in Turkey, with cases in Saudia Arabia, Colombia, Cuba, Belarus and The Philippines.
Three recorded cases of verbal harassment in March included investigative journalist at News10 Lindsay Nielsen’s allegations of harassment from N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration and Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s targeting of New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz. The final case was recorded in Canada after Edmonton reporter Lauren Boothby was harassed while doing her job. One of the men involved has been charged with engaging in hate crimes, the report says.
CFWIJ recorded seven cases of an organized online “troll campaign” against female journalists in the U.S., Pakistan, The Philippines, and France. Two U.K. reporters, Laura Bill and Melissa Reddy, came forward with powerful testimonies about sexual harassment in the field, and two reporters from Malta and Australia were subjected to sexist attacks from commentators and politicians, the report states.
At least two female journalists faced racist attacks in March, CFWIJ said. Karel Valansi was targeted by anti-Semitic hate in Turkey and in Canada, filmmaker and journalist Eileen Park was subjected to hateful, racist comments after her private wedding pictures were published in a magazine.
One journalist reported state oppression. Luz Escobar was barred from leaving her home in Havana, Cuba to cover what was happening on International Women’s Day, the report states, citing plainclothes officers guarding the door and government officials keeping surveillance in a nearby car.
The report concludes with an acknowledgement of the 150 female sports journalists in France who came forward with their testimonies of sexual harassment they have faced over the years while working in the European country, with an appeal for a unified effort to push back against the “misogynistic culture around sports worldwide [which] fosters the harassment and hate female journalists face in the field.”
