Countering Online Violence against Women: OSCE Guidelines for monitoring online violence against female journalists

7 June 2023, 15:00 – 16:30 (CEST) Zoom

Democratic participation at all levels is possible only when everyone can access information about policies, programs and issues of public interest, and discuss openly. However, gender-based online attacks threaten to prevent women from participating in the public sphere, depriving all of society of diverse information and inclusive public debates.

At an online event, the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) will present the OSCE Guidelines for monitoring online violence against female journalists, which help identify key indicators and metrics signaling escalation of online violence against women journalists. OSCE PA Special Representative on Gender Issues Hedy Fry (Canada), Rapporteur of the OSCE PA Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions Johan Büser, (Sweden) and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield Diana Maynard will discuss concrete actions needed to empower women journalists and to ensure their safety in the online sphere.

Intended to provide a platform to exchange good practices, lessons learned and innovations on how national parliaments can take concrete actions to enhance the monitoring of online violence against female journalists, the event will include a question and answer session, allowing parliamentarians to share their own perspectives and experiences.