Sexual harassment has been identified as the highest violation faced by women in the media. A book, “Coming out of the shadows: The untold stories of sexual harassment in Zimbabwe’s media” was recently launched at a gender media conference organised by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) in Harare. It is the first book to put on the spotlight the harsh realities faced by women in the media in Zimbabwe.
The book features a series of stories from female journalists who have been harassed whilst in the line of duty and was compiled by Zimbabwe Independence Editor Faith Zaba. “Its been quite a journey meeting these courageous women and hearing their stories. What we are now saying is enough is enough, we are our sisters’ keeper and it’s time to speak out,” Faith said.
According to a report produced by Patience Zirima the Executive Director of Gender and Media Connect (GMC) female journalists in Zimbabwe do not fully enjoy media freedom even though media freedom is guaranteed in the Zimbabwean Constitution.Female journalists are forced to navigate structural, institutional and patriarchal systems that affect their working environment. Eighty six percent of women who had responded to an online survey showed that they were harassed in some way whilst doing their work. A study done by GMC in 2021 showed that 73% of female journalists reported that the media environment was very hostile with a lot of offensive and abusive comments from males.
FNF Programme Manager, Fungisai Sithole said that her desire is to see equality in the media. “We yearn to see a gender friendly media where the opportunities for female journalists are equal to those of their male counterparts all in an effort to grooming a more equal society. It is disheartening that over the last three years we have observed that sexual harassment remains one of the bottlenecks towards achieving ultimate real freedom for female journalists,” she said.
The Minister for Media, Information and Publicity Honourable Jenfan Muswere who was the guest of honour at the even said that it was imperative for media organisations to have a change in organisational behaviour. “How do we achieve gender equality? How do we curb sexual harassment and empower women in the media and broadcasting services with the requisite experience for them to be able to flourish in the media sector? It seems the biggest challenge is sexual harassment. We need change agents to be able to create a safe and secure working environment for all journalists.It is our interest as government to be able to liquidate sexual harassment in both private and public media houses. We need to support the girl child in the media houses. They should not only smash the glass ceiling but smash it,”he said.