On 18 October, Irene Khan, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, presented her report on gender justice and freedom of opinion and expression to the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.
Khan said that States were failing to respect, protect and fulfil women’s equal right to freedom of opinion and expression. Gendered censorship is so pervasive that gender equality in freedom of expression remains a distant goal.
According to the report, female journalists are particularly targeted through physical and psychological violence and threats, including death and rape threats, for speaking out or simply for being a woman in a leadership role. While the safety of all journalists is threatened, women are at much higher risk of sexualised violence and online violence, including doxing. The Special Rapporteur emphasised that attacks on them violate not only their freedom of expression, but also society’s right to information from diverse media, and are a gendered attack on media freedom.
“There can be no trade-off between women’s right to be free from violence and the right to freedom of opinion and expression,” Irene Khan said. “Gender justice requires not only an end to unlawful interference with women’s freedom of opinion and expression but also the creation of an enabling environment in which women can exercise their agency and participate safely, fully and equally in the political, social, cultural and economic life.” She made specific recommendations to the States, the international community, social media companies, and media outlets.
This report is the first one in the 27 years’ history of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate to be devoted exclusively to women’s challenges in exercising their freedom of opinion and expression. Justice for Journalists Foundation is pleased to have informed the report, as women journalists in the post-Soviet space face tremendous daily challenges and risks, and their experience is vital for formulating solutions at the international level.
According to Justice for Journalists Foundation, in just 2020, 1 214 women media workers were subjected to attacks in 12 post-Soviet states. In 80% of the cases, the representatives of the authorities were behind these attacks. The largest number of the attacks took place in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. These were also the countries with the biggest increase in the number of attacks compared to 2019. The full submission by the Justice for Journalists Foundation regarding the attacks on women media workers in the Post-Soviet can be found here.