Stories
Read stories about courageous journalists and what the United Nations is doing to protect media workers around the world.
Working as a journalist involves many risks. But if you are a woman journalist, the insecurity is even greater. The threats that women journalists receive may be directly connected to the fact of being a woman. 73% of women journalists surveyed by UNESCO experienced some kind of online violence.
The African Digital Platform on Promoting Journalism and Safety of Journalists - the first of its kind in Africa - was launched in 2021. It aims to promote journalists’ safety in Africa and end to impunity on crimes against them, through real time monitoring, reporting and follow-up actions by both the duty and right bearers.
In 2020, Zuhal Ahad, an Afghan journalist from the Hazara community, was working for the BBC covering women’s affairs in Afghanistan. As a woman journalist working in Afghanistan, she has always been a target. In July 2021, a month before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the threats got even worse.
9 out of 10 killings of journalists still go unpunished. Impunity is fed by a cycle of violence against journalists, which is often due to weak law enforcement systems, lack of awareness about human rights standards and mechanisms to protect journalists. The UN Plan of Action has been instrumental to mobilize civil society and make justice systems more aware about human rights standards to protect press freedom and end impunity attacks.
In 2017, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered by a car bomb placed under her seat as she drove away from her home. Galizia had spent 30 years investigating government corruption. Herman Grech, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper where Caruana Galizia once was a columnist, brings her story to life on stage.