Women in Media: Overcoming Adversity Together

On March 8, 2023, on a historic 113th year of the International Women’s Day

commemoration, the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) in
partnership with OsloMet and UNESCO, gathered, via Zoom, 69 women-journalists, media
workers, and academics across the globe to highlight their stories and honor their courage,
heroism, and resilience.

The online discussion-solidarity meeting aptly titled, Women in Media: Overcoming

Adversity Together, opened with an introductory message from IAWRT President Dr. Michelle
Ferrier, award-winning technologist, scholar, writer, journalist, founder and creator of Trollbusters
(a just-in-time rescue service for women-writers and journalists), and Executive Director of the
Media Innovation Collaboratory, based in Tallahassee, Florida, USA. Dr. Elisabeth Eide, journalist,
writer, and professor of Journalism Studies at OsloMet University in Norway was the moderator.

Five principled and intrepid women journalists, namely, Najiba Ayubi (Afghanistan), Alina
Radu (Moldova), Alyona Nevmerzhytska (Ukraine), Rhea Padilla (Philippines), and Fatuma
Matulanga (Tanzania) lent their voices on behalf of their colleagues. Each of them shared how
they and other women journalists in their respective countries bravely stood against and endured
oppression, war, armed conflict, red-tagging, political persecution and incarceration, radicalization
and extremism, online trolling, hate speech, physical and sexual assault, among other forms of
abuse.

Najiba Ayubi is an Afghan multi-awarded journalist, and human rights and press freedom
activist. She was a recipient of the 2013 Courage in Journalism Award from the International
Women’s Media and named one of the 100 Information Heroes by Reporters without Borders
(Reporters sans frontières) in 2014. With over 25 years of media experience, she is the managing
director of the Killid Group, a non-profit media network that runs two of the country’s top
magazines and 11 radio stations, with over a hundred affiliated radios. She lamented how Islamic
extremism has been oppressive and destructive to women journalists, and women, in general,
since the Taliban returned to power. She cited thousands of Afghans who fled the country at all
costs to preserve their life. Unfortunately, some lost their life in an attempt to save it. One of whom
is asylum seeker and journalist Torpekai Amarkhel, who was onboard a fleeing boat that capsized
near Italy. Ms. Ayubi used to head the IAWRT Afghanistan Chapter, which got dissolved due to
the repressive Taliban regime. She is currently based in the United States.
Another award-winning investigative journalist from Moldova and managing director of the
country’s independent newspaper Zairul de Garda (The Guard Newspaper) is Alina Radu. She
shared how women journalists in their country have been marginalized and isolated. Facebook
(FB) or Metaverse is inaccessible in Moldova. Thus, she enjoined FB to be sympathetic to female
journalists and provide them access to social media, which has been tightly controlled by the
government. Ms. Radu currently heads IAWRT Moldova Chapter.
Prominent Ukrainian journalist Alyona Nevmerzhytska, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of
media outfit Hromadske, explained that while their culture is not particularly oppressive to women,
however, things went on a downward spiral since the Russian invasion in February 2022. The
incessant air strikes and attacks of the country’s major cities had triggered the exodus of around
5 million Ukraine nationals, mostly women and children. Those who remain in the country have
to endure extreme living conditions and the ravages of war.
The Philippines’ Rhea Padilla, National Coordinator of the People’s Alternative Media
Network (Altermidya) deplored the red-tagging, political persecution, intimidation, and even killing
of women journalists and media personalities. She raised the case of Tacloban City-based
journalist and IAWRT member Frenchie Mae Cumpio, who has been in jail for over three years
now for trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and terrorist
financing. Ms. Cumpio was among the “Tacloban 5” human rights defenders who were raided and
arrested at midnight on February 20, 2020. Her arrest and continued detention speak of insidious
yet blatant attacks against journalists in the country, aimed at intimidating and silencing those who
are critical in their reporting. Ms. Padilla then called on government authorities for the immediate
release of Ms. Cumpio and colleagues.
Journalist Fatuma Matulanga is the CEO of Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation in
Zanzibar and IAWRT Tanzania’s Chapter head. She shared how women in their country have
been disproportionately represented in media. Most Media Studies graduates and professionals
ended up as PR officers and spokespersons. Women have been marginalized and paid less than
their male counterparts and are in dire need of training and retooling.

Theresa Chorbacher of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO) Paris talked about the organization’s mandate to work on press freedom
and its various legal, policy-making, and capability-building initiatives to promote the safety of
women journalists worldwide and address the issue of impunity. In 2022, UNESCO published
“The Chilling”, a report of a three-year intensive study on online violence against women
journalists in 15 countries, conducted by researchers from the US-based International Center for
Journalists (ICFJ) and the UK-based Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM). The report sheds
light on the “evolving challenges faced by women journalists; identifies political actors as top
perpetrators of online violence against women journalists using popular social media platforms;
maps out the online-offline violence trajectory; and offers practical recommendations for
intergovernmental organizations, States, Big Tech, the news industry, legal and judicial actors,
and civil society”. Truly, the adversities faced by women journalists in and out of the newsroom
may seem daunting and insurmountable. But we can overcome it, if we unite and work together
in this fight! (Sol Virtudazo)
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