Saturday, 1 November 2025

International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists 2025; November 2nd.


FORUM: "Chat GBV: Raising Awareness on AI-facilitated Gender-Based Violence against Women Journalists." International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists 2025. Ending impunity for crimes against journalists is one of the most important and complex challenges of recent times. It is an essential precondition to guarantee freedom of expression and access to information for all citizens. This year's observance highlights the threats women journalists face in the digital space and the chilling effect this can have on freedom of expression more broadly. Digital transformation has created new opportunities for expression and activism, while also giving rise to heightened risks. Women are particularly impacted by these risks, especially those in public-facing roles such as journalists, politicians, and scientists. They face AI-driven threats, including the spread of gendered disinformation, surveillance, deepfakes and other forms of harassment. This emerging issue, also known as technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), has become alarmingly prevalent, particularly with the rise of generative artificial intelligence. “Chat GBV” is a call to action for all stakeholders to tackle Gender-Based Violence (GBV) through various initiatives, including talking about it and proposing solutions, taking advantage of various opportunities such as policy and advocacy forums, as well as on digital platforms themselves. Follow the conversations with the hashtags: #EndimpunityDay, #CrimesAgainstJournalists, #2november, #DefendPressFreedom, #ProtectJournalists.



Every year, UNESCO, as the coordinator of the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety ofJournalists and the Issue of Impunity, spearheads the commemoration of the International Day toEnd Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists (IDEI), to create awareness about the dangers that journalists face in informing communities, to hold the memory of journalists that have been killed in their course of their work, and to seek accountability for crimes committed against journalists. The 2025 commemoration is the 11th edition since it was proclaimed in 1993 as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists by the UN General Assembly. Every year’s commemoration is to reinforce the key themes and messages related to the overall fight against impunity and provides an opportunity for stakeholders, including Member States, Civil society, media. and various coalitions, to reaffirm their commitment to the implementation of the UN Plan of Action for Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

 The IDEI commemoration has also been an occasion for releasing data and highlights of the UNESCO Director-General’s Report on Safety of Journalists every biennium, along with other relevant publications and data. Various stakeholders have also leveraged IDEI as an occasion to raise awareness about the fight against impunity, by engaging in different activities, including holding national/regional events, organizing side-events on the margins of major events, releasing new reports or publishing op-ed articles on major news platforms, making the case for the need for a safer environment for journalists. This multifaceted approach to commemoration has significantly raised awareness of the thematic issues related to impunity and has fostered broader engagement among partners committed to the safety of journalists, in line with the UN Plan of Action on Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. This year, IDEI will be commemorated with the same approach, but with greater emphasis on encouraging national events worldwide with higher visibility. Hence no global signature event/conference will be held. This approach will enable the upscaling of national events as forms of localized ownership of commemoration and provide an opportunity to contextualize the thematic issues around crimes against journalists and the issue of impunity in local contexts.

Safety of Women Journalists, Artificial Intelligence, and Technology-facilitated Gender-Based Violence.

 Digital transformation has created new opportunities for expression and activism, while also giving rise to heightened risks. Women are particularly impacted by these risks, especially those in public-facing roles such as journalists, politicians, and scientists. They face AI-driven threats, including the spread of gendered disinformation, surveillance, deepfakes and other forms of harassment. This emerging issue, also known as technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), has become alarmingly prevalent, particularly with the rise of generative artificial intelligence. The 2021 UNESCO-commissioned study The Chilling, carried out by ICFJ, found that 73% of women journalists had experienced online threats related to their work, with one in four facing offline attacks as a result. There has been no relief to this trend since. Rather, access to institutional support still remains scarce, resulting in the following trends: 
• Offline violence remains widespread and is increasingly connected with online abuse, erasing the line between digital and physical threats. 
• Physical violence, legal threats, including SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), defamation campaigns, and doxxing, are used to silence women journalists. 
• The impact extends beyond individuals, affecting families and sources, leading to self-censorship, social isolation, and mental health struggles. 
• The constant threat of online harassment causes many journalists or female content creators to withdraw from public participation. 

This year’s IDEI seeks to further address this problem, to reinforce stakeholder’s ongoing work in tackling online attacks against journalists, and particularly in promoting the safety of women journalists, by focusing on online gendered violence under the theme: Chat GBV: Raising Awareness on AI-facilitated Gender-Based Violence against women journalists. This theme addresses the growing threats posed by AI tools that facilitate and amplify online gender-based violence, harassment, surveillance, and gendered disinformation, disproportionately against women journalists. “Chat GBV” is a call to action for all stakeholders to tackle Gender-Based Violence (GBV) through various initiatives, including talking about it and proposing solutions, taking advantage of various opportunities such as policy and advocacy forums, as well as on digital platforms themselves. The purpose is to further reinforce the implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of journalists and the Issue of Impunity, for which UNESCO plays a coordination role, and in particular as articulated in the various processes, including the Vienna conference consultations on the 10th anniversary of the UN Plan. During this process, one of the key priorities identified was tackling the increasing vulnerabilities of women journalists, particularly in online spaces, where digital technologies including artificial intelligence, are implicated in facilitating these vulnerabilities. Chatting about GBV as part of commemoration of IDEI will allow both right holders and duty bearers, as well as other intermediary actors, to better understand the scope and complexity of the problem in finding durable solutions.

The Global Campaign As part of IDEI, UNESCO will develop a global advocacy campaign on AI facilitated gender-based violence. The campaign will include various communication materials and key messaging highlighting the problem, impact, and call to action against AI facilitated gender-based violence against women journalists. The campaign would be useful in providing data, trends and messaging, which would inform organizing national events. It will be designed based on data from the following processes: 
• A new global survey will be conducted on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) to better understand and address the rising threat of online violence against women journalists (as well as human rights defenders, and activists). Disaggregated data on trends and impacts of TFGBV as it relates to women journalists will inform the messaging of the global campaign. The survey is led by UN Women and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), in partnership with UNESCO and funded by the European Union under the ACT to End Violence Against Women and Girls programme. 
• Data and findings already assembled for the 2025 UNESCO World Trends Report on Freedom of Expression and Media Development. 
• Existing data drawn from UNESCO’s relevant prior work, as well as safety of journalists in different countries and crisis context, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan, Haiti, and Gaza. The Campaign’s key messages and communications materials will be widely shared with stakeholders to inform the preparations for national events.

Maximining local impact with national commemorations around the world.

As part of commemorations, the UNESCO network of field offices and other UN agencies, civil society organizations, Member States, Intergovernmental organizations, media associations, as well as other key actors, will be invited to join hands in initiating local/national events which will be assembled in a global map. The number of local events has been increasing every year, pointing to increased awareness at national level, and willingness to take the lead in contributing to the fight against impunity. National-level commemorations will foster and build on this growing momentum and national ownership, particularly in countries where the safety of women journalists is an issue of particular concern, and where UNESCO is already actively engaged through programming, partnerships, or policy support. UNESCO will prepare and share resources and thematic guidance, including data from the survey, trends and key messages to various actors to facilitate their engagement in the commemoration.

What partners and strategic coalitions on safety of journalists can do to commemorate IDEI.

 Partners and coalitions on the safety of journalists will be encouraged to actively engage in amplifying this year’s theme through various actions and partnerships specific to their mandates or in partnership with other actors with shared goals. In order to adopt a process-oriented approach that goes beyond commemoration events, partners will be encouraged to take advantage of the occasion to do initiatives such as issuing a public statement, announcing a major policy reform initiative, or a new project on safety of journalists. The following suggestions could further inform the planning of stakeholders in preparations for IDEI:


Media Outlets and journalists’ associations 

• Organise solidarity events for journalists that have suffered reprisals for their work, including non-lethal attacks against women journalists, disappearances and imprisonment. 
• Hold meetings to review and implement gender-responsive safety strategies based on IWMF and UNESCO’s guidelines. 
• Organise safety trainings, with a focus on digital safety, integrating TFGBV modules, for local journalists (specially women journalists), both staff and freelance. 
• Develop newsroom protocols to address gender-based violence, with mechanisms to respond to TFGBV cases, including internal reporting mechanisms, psychological support, and legal aid referral systems. 
• Review existing support policies and strategies for journalists (especially women journalists) when it comes to working in dangerous contexts.

National Human Rights Institutions
 
• Designate an official focal point with responsibility to gather and provide information about safety and impunity, including information on technology-facilitated-gender based violence against women journalists. • Host national safety mechanisms and co-operate with them to ensure accountability and transparency. 
• Create a complaint mechanism or hotline within the NHRI specifically for TFGBV cases. 
• Commit to inclusion of safety of journalists’ elements in national human rights reports and international reporting obligations, including the Universal Periodic Reviews and Voluntary National Reviews. 
• Convene national consultations with women journalists, digital rights experts, and law enforcement on addressing TFGBV through legal and policy reform. Civil society organisations working on Freedom of Expression and safety of journalists 
• Organise advocacy and awareness raising events for stakeholders, that include testimonies from journalists that have suffered reprisals for their work. 
• Host roundtables or webinars focused on the impact of TFGBV on women journalists and media workers, highlighting personal testimonies and survivor-centered perspectives. 
• Present preliminary findings of ongoing research into safety, impunity, democracy and freedom of expression issues. 
• Organise trainings for other CSOs on how to best to utilise UN human rights treaty bodies, review State parties' periodic reports, or transmit individual complaints. 
• Offer holistic support services (legal, psychological, digital, physical) for women journalists facing TFGBV to combat safety and impunity, and to increase accountability for crimes against journalists, for example, by supporting the legal defence of journalists and launching strategic litigation.

Member States 

• Designate officials as focal points with responsibility to gather and provide information on the subject of safety-impunity, including for the purposes of co-operating with UNESCO’s annual request for information on judicial follow-up to killings. 
• Establish or support specialized units within law enforcement to investigate and prosecute TFGBV cases. 
• Develop a national protocol or action plan on preventing and responding to TFGBV, including data collection and survivor support. 
• Create multistakeholder working groups on the issue of technology-facilitated genderbased violence against women journalists 
• Intensify advocacy through international cooperation, including in conjunction with Member State led coalitions such as the Groups of Friends for the Safety of Journalists gathering likeminded delegations in international fora, Media Freedom Coalition (MFC) and make strong international public condemnations of attacks against journalists. 
• Hold consultations to start/continue the process of building broad intra-state coalitions/dialogue platforms of media, law enforcement agencies and other relevant stakeholders in the development of prevention, protection and prosecution mechanisms. 
• Organise a training/capacity building exercise for judicial actors on international standards of freedom of expression and safety of journalists. 
• Voluntarily/self-report to UNESCO on current best practices that are being implemented to prevent, protect and prosecute crimes against journalists. 
• Extend a standing invitation for human rights mandate holders, special rapporteurs and other experts from regional and international systems, specific to the safety of journalists and freedom of expression, to conduct fact-finding missions on safety of journalists


Academic Networks 

• Launch research projects and resources on safety of journalists and the issue of impunity. • Conduct research studies on the prevalence, patterns, and impacts of TFGBV, particularly on women journalists and activists.
 • Hold trainings for students and researchers on how to use databases like the CFOM Literature Database and discover other academic literature on safety-impunity issues. 
• Present preliminary findings of ongoing research into safety, impunity, democracy and freedom of expression issues. 
• Hold Brown Bag talks for students and faculty on the work of academia in promoting safety of journalists. 

Inter-governmental organisations 

• Convene a commemorative dialogue between member states on the issue of impunity and safety of journalists in the relevant region, to share best practices and actions taken to improve the safety of journalists. 
• Launch/initiate a process to establish a Group of Friends in intergovernmental organisations where one does not already exist. 
• Sharing best practices between regional organisations on strengthening regional monitoring and reporting on safety of journalists. 
• Initiating resolutions on safety of journalists in regional standard setting bodies. 

UN Country Teams and UNESCO field offices 

• Work closely with UNESCO to create visibility for attacks against journalists, including issuing joint press releases.
 • Replicate UN Focal Points Networks at country level. This network is an interagency coordination platform on safety of journalists’ issues.
• Organize inter-agency awareness activities on safety of journalists for UN staff and associated personnel based on the Resource Kit for UN Staff on Safety of Journalists. 

UN and regional Special Procedures/Rapporteurs

 • Initiate investigations for special reports that focus on trends on attacks against journalists. 
• Organise solidarity meetings/events for journalists that have suffered reprisals for their work, including non-lethal attacks against women journalists, disappearances and imprisonment. Groups of Friends on Safety of Journalists 
• Organise solidarity meetings/events for journalists that have suffered reprisals for their work, including non-lethal attacks against women journalists, disappearances and imprisonment. 
• Organise dialogues to share good practices and measures for the implementation of national safety mechanisms for journalists. 
• Convene a debate on challenges to sufficient funding and diversification of funding for the implementation of the UN Plan of Action


Leveraging global events for networking on IDEI 

This year’s commemoration strategy is to identify and multiply opportunities in which various stakeholders can engage in amplifying the theme of this year. Several international events provide such opportunities where different stakeholders wishing to engage at a global level can leverage and identify opportunities for strategic engagement on the IDEI theme. There are various ways of engaging and leveraging these opportunities. A civil society organization, a media association or any other actor, could for example organise a side event, hold an exhibition or request for a speaking slot, or network with other participants. 




The following are some of the major events with potential for leveraging and making connection with the IDEI theme. 

23-25 October - IPI 75th World Congress – Vienna – Austria: The Congress will address critical challenges such as journalist safety in high-risk environments, the worldwide threat to journalism from growing authoritarianism, and ensuring media sustainability through innovative business models. https://ipi.media/ipi-announces-75thanniversary-world-congress-in-vienna-in-2025/ 

26-28 October - East Asia Summit (EAS Twentieth Anniversary) – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The summit is a forum for dialogue and cooperation on broad strategic, political, and economic issues of common interest and concern with the aim of promoting peace, stability, and economic prosperity in East Asia. https://eastasiasummit.asean.org/eas-events 

4-6 November - Second World Summit for Social Development – Doha, Qatar.
The summit aims to address persistent gaps, reaffirm global commitment to social development, and give new momentum to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://social.desa.un.org/world-summit-2025/about

3-4 November 2025: the 11th Annual Conference on the Safety of Journalists at OsloMet, Oslo, Norway. https://uni.oslomet.no/mekk/2025/06/25/the-11th-annual-conference-on-the-safetyof-journalists-at-oslomet/ 

10-21November 2025 – COP30 – Belem, Brazil. https://unfccc.int/cop30 ; https://cop30.br/en 

20-24 November 2025: Global Investigative Journalism Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Global Investigative Journalism Conference is the world’s largest international gathering of investigative journalists. The conference features training on the latest tools and techniques, cutting-edge workshops, and extensive networking and brainstorming sessions: https://gijc2025.org/
 
25 November 2025 - 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence – Global .https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/16-days-of-activism

 4-5 December 2025: African Women in Media (AWiM2025) conference, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. https://africanwomeninmedia.com/2025/03/24/awim25-conference-call-for-papers/ 




PUBLICATIONS




Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)