GAMAG Europe joins the multiple organizations, feminist movement and civil society at European and international level in the commemoration of the 25N, International Day for the elimination of violence against women, to end the sexist violence suffered by women and children from all over the world, and encourages countries to ratify the International Labor Organization’s Convention 190 on violence and harassment, by supporting the International Trade Union Confederation’s campaign to accelerate the process towards the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work.
The provisions of Convention 190 facilitate the prevention and prosecution of these threats and in the case of journalism it should be noted that by it obliges media employers by law to ensure the safety of journalists when working outside the newsroom and specifically addresses online violence, by forcing States to adopt legislation that protects professionals from online attacks and to create reporting mechanisms. In addition, it includes specific protections for the most vulnerable groups, susceptible to hate speech and discrimination in the workplace. The International Federation of Journalists (FIP) has launched an international campaign on the need to ratify this convention, to coincide with the commemoration of 25N.
Regarding European countries, in Spain, the ratification process of ILO Convention 190 is already underway, after the Spanish Congress of Deputies has issued a favorable opinion for its ratification and it must now be approved by the Council of Ministers. Italy and Portugal are also in the process of ratification and Finland has already done so.
On the other hand, the European chapter of the Global Alliance for Media and Gender (GAMAG Europe) calls on European governments and the EU to have accurate data accessible to the press on the impact of sexist violence against women.
There are many countries in Europe that lack data to help to identify this problem with gender perspective in the information on gender violence cases. There is even a confusion between sexist violence and domestic violence in some of the media.
Gamag Europe highlights the trajectory of Spain in this field, a country that since 2003 has had statistics on victims of gender violence and that in January will include victims of vicarious violence, that is, children and girls who are murdered in contexts of sexist violence.
Having reliable information is essential so that the journalistic profession can incorporate it into information on gender violence both to contextualize crimes and to make visible the dimensions that lead to it, in every country, so that European citizens can recognize and become aware of the problem.
Gamag Europe recalls that the Istanbul Convention of the Council of Europe, which is valid since 2014, includes in its article 11 the commitment of the signatory countries on data collection and investigation of sexist violence: “For the purposes of the application of the present Convention, the Parties shall compromise to: collect relevant statistical data disaggregated at regular intervals of time on the cases of all forms of violence within the scope of this Convention ”.