2021 was a significant year for women journalists in Latin America, especially for Colombians.
In June of that year, the Constitutional Court issued ruling T-140-21 in favor of Vanesa Restrepo, who in 2019 denounced the sexual abuse she suffered by a co-worker from the newspaper El Colombiano.
In this decision, the Court "protects the journalist's rights to work in an environment free of violence and gender discrimination."
In March of the same year, Jineth Bedoya exposed before an international court the heartbreaking testimony of the sexual violence of which she was the victim of her while she was carrying out her journalistic work.
On August 21 of the same year, two decades after the events, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared the State responsible for the attack against Bedoya.
Both are very significant jurisprudential decisions for the protection of journalists with a gender perspective.
However, being a woman and a journalist in the Americas continues to be a situation riddled with violence.
The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE)—created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)—documented the obstacles and challenges for women in the media in its report "Women Journalists and Newsrooms: Progress, Challenges, and recommendations to prevent violence and fight discrimination”.
The document details its findings in three chapters that address violence and discrimination against journalists in the media;
the role of the media in the eradication of violence and segregation based on gender;
and the advances and challenges to achieve it.
In a final chapter, RELE makes suggestions to deepen the approach to gender violence in newsrooms.
The ceiling that seems unreachable
According to the report, among the progresses it stands out that the number of women dedicated to journalism has grown and, for example, in Argentina the majority of students in careers such as journalism or communication are women.
Despite this, they are only 30% of the people who work in journalistic companies.
In Brazil, women are the majority in the exercise of the trade, but they are only 22% of the people who lead newsrooms.
The same dynamic is registered in Venezuela, where the report shows that men occupy the majority of hierarchical positions in the media while female journalists, and particularly the younger ones, are in charge of reporting.
The journalists consulted by RELE assure that they find it difficult to cover the protection of women's rights.
The Ecuadorians pointed out that when they try to address it, they face a "permanent struggle, and an extra job of pedagogy towards their colleagues."
This reinforces another finding in the report: female journalists are pigeonholed in issues considered 'soft', such as cultural or social issues.
In Colombia, only 2 out of 10 women cover all the issues in their media or work in politics and justice.
In Argentina, men are in charge of coverage of politics, economics, or sports.
The Rapporteurship affirms that journalists face different types of violence such as vertical and horizontal segregation or salary gaps.
All this has generated enormous barriers for journalists to break the so-called glass ceiling
,
the limit that gender biases create for women to climb and assume management or power positions.
Given this not very encouraging landscape for women in the most hegemonic media, the document maintains that journalists have chosen to lead and develop their own digital media.
Several of these have been gaining strength and have been consolidated as a strategy to counteract the obstacles they face in a job that is already precarious and also masculinized.
Sexual violence does not let up
The story of Vanesa Restrepo in El Colombiano adds to the long list of complaints that have been made in recent years to various Colombian media and that continues to grow.
On October 20, Laura Ubaté's complaint was added to the list, who stated that she had been the victim of sexual harassment by a member of Radionica, a cultural station of the Colombian public media system.
According to RELE, victimizing events of this type prevail in the media and "are frequently naturalized, which gives rise to an organizational culture that discourages reporting and encourages the repetition of these events."
The report records that 60% of 160 women communicators interviewed for the report "No Es Hora De Callar", from the Foundation for Press Freedom (Flip) reported having been victims of gender violence at work and that 78% know situations of gender violence against a colleague.
The alarming figure is similar in other countries.
70% of Brazilian journalists stated that they were aware of acts of sexual harassment carried out by male colleagues or hierarchical superiors.
, who reported sexual harassment by their bosses, co-workers or sources In Mexico, a study carried out in 2019 among 392 journalists revealed that 72% of them had experienced sexual harassment at work and 76% indicated that "in their companies, there is no type of campaign, course or action to sensitize staff about harassment and sexual harassment”.
Just last year, Mexican journalists launched a campaign on social networks where, under the hashtag #MetooPeriodistasMexicanos, they shared their testimonies about the experiences of sexual harassment they had suffered in different media.
EL PAÍS spoke with 5 journalists from different national and international media with a presence in Colombia and only two mentioned knowing some kind of route to address gender violence.
One works at El Colombiano and mentioned that this mechanism gained strength after the ruling of the Constitutional Court, which ordered teaching about it.
For Restrepo, although the ruling was just a first step in his case, it shows that things are slowly changing.
“Every time someone raises their voice and something happens, that gives others hope or enough courage to do the same, to speak up, to stop injustices,” says the journalist.
To this end, the report highlights that the media play a key role, which goes beyond eradicating them within and includes encouraging narratives that dismantle gender stereotypes and giving greater representation to Afro-descendant, indigenous or trans communicators.
“The data indicates that journalism needs to confront both gender and ethnic-racial inequalities,” he notes.
These forms of underrepresentation and inequality are especially noticeable with Afro-descendant journalists in Brazil.
Despite the fact that it is a country with a large Afro population, "black journalists have the worst remuneration," says the report.
The problem is repeated with native peoples, as in Colombia, where the representation of the indigenous population is minimal and the approach in many cases reproduces stereotypes and prejudices.
Steps to prevent violence
To address the limitations women face in newsrooms, RELE makes several suggestions, such as establishing internal media policies, with specific provisions to combat gender-based violence and discrimination.
He warns of the need for them to have a transversal intersectional approach, so that it is possible to include people of diverse identities, the elderly or with some type of functional diversity.
It highlights the importance of having defined people lead the implementation of these policies, so that their monitoring is easier and to have periodic reports that allow measuring their effectiveness.
It advises simultaneously training all staff on gender equality and urges the media to prioritize female candidates in the appointment of senior positions, when a male candidate and a female candidate have the same qualifications.
The recommendations arise from the proposals of the same women interviewed throughout the construction of the report.
This reminds us that it is usually the journalists themselves who propose how to make their work spaces safer and more equal.
After his complaint, Restrepo has become a kind of support for his colleagues.
"Many have approached me to support them in demanding or implementing the protocols within their companies," he says in conversation with EL PAÍS.
“Although it has been a difficult path, I have seen that fear is being lost and the media are understanding that what we are asking for are basic rights, such as working in spaces free of violence.
That sounds like a very big achievement to me,” she added.
These are transformations that have been founded on the courage of women who are now an example for the youngest journalism.
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