A report by the World Association of News Publishers (Wan-Ifra) Women in News’ has revealed that Kenyan media houses lead in cases of sexual harrasement.
The research carried out between July and November, 2020 covering eight African countries and with 584 respondents, shows 56 per cent of women suffered both verbal and physical sexual harassment.
It also revealed that women stay silent because of fear of retaliation and lack of faith that their organisations will do anything about their reports.
Comparably, 24 per cent of men faced verbal sexual harassment and physical form 15 percent.
Women were most subjected to verbal sexual harassment with Kenya leading with 79 per cent, followed by Zambia (66 per cent) and Uganda (63.1 per cent).
Those harassed physically in Malawi, 57.8 per cent of the women suffered the same, Tanzania (47 per cent), Zimbabwe (41 per cent) and Rwanda (40.7 per cent).
In Botswana, more women experienced physical sexual harassment (48 per cent) than those who reported having been sexually harassed physically (40 per cent).
Overall, the executives are the main perpetrators (41 per cent) of the sexual harassment, followed by colleagues (38 per cent) and news sources (17 per cent).The managers are neither immune to the harassment.
“It all starts with a conversation on what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour in your media organisation being explicit about sexual harassment sharing definitions, what behaviours are unacceptable and communicating the right of every employee to be treated equally. It is far better to be proactive and prepared than pushed into a crisis management position when a case emerges,” said Women in News Executive Director Melanie Walker.
Fifty per cent of the 32 executives interviewed said they had been victims of sexual harassment but only nine per cent reported.There are, however, two major barriers to ending sexual harassment in the newsrooms - fear and top leadership’s blindness to the issue.
The 44.9 per cent of the interviewed media professionals cited fear as the main reason barring them from reporting. Only three per cent of the managers said they discuss the issue in senior management meetings.
While change may be slow in coming, however, there are small wins being recorded across the region. Women in News, for instance, through its advisory partnerships in Africa, is working with 30 member organisations across eight countries to institute sexual harassment policies that provide clear reporting mechanisms to make newsrooms safer.
“Newsrooms need as much information and support as possible to ameliorate the challenges posed by sexual harassment within the workplace by colleagues and in the field by sources,” said WIN Advisory Manager Susan Makore.
