40% of women in media facing sexual harassment
On average, 40% of women media professionals have experienced sexual harassment of some kind in the workplace. Women and gender non-conforming media professionals are almost three and a half times more likely to experience harassment than men, according to a study by City University of London for WAN-IFRA Women in News.
The study covers 20 countries and more than 2 000 persons throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, Eurasia (Russia), the Arab Region and select countries in Central America.
41% of women journalists have experienced verbal and/or physical sexual harassment in the workplace. Yet only 1 in 5 reported the incident. Though less prevalent, men have not been spared, with an average of 12% experiencing verbal and/or physical harassment. On average, 30% of all journalists surveyed experienced verbal and/or physical harassment, the resort says.
The study shows that 80% of sexual harassment cases are unreported. This is largely due to fear – fear of negative impact, fear of losing their job, fear of not being believed, and fear of retaliation.
In addition, on average one in four respondents said they did not report their experience of harassment because their organisation lacked the mechanism to do so and/or they did not know how. Only 11% of respondents reported knowing whether their organisations even had a sexual harassment policy.
Of the few cases that are reported, action is taken by the organisation in only half of the cases and is most commonly limited to warning the perpetrator (41%).
85 executives, including 51 women, from media organisations in the five regions were interviewed as part of the qualitative research. 43.5% acknowledged that they themselves experienced sexual harassment – similar to the findings reported by women journalists. Yet only 27% of these same executives believe that it is still an issue in the industry.
“It was remarkable to notice the gap in perspective between journalists who participated in the survey and the management of media organisations. This shows that when clear and effective reporting mechanisms are not present, management are unaware of the problem of sexual harassment in their organisations,” said Lindsey Brumell, lead researcher, City University, London.
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