IMI survey: threats and online trolling are the main challenges in the work of female journalists in Ukraine

Threats and online trolling are the main challenges that female journalists face in their work in Ukraine. This is the data from the anonymous survey, conducted by IMI among female journalists in all regions of Ukraine.*   Based on the results of the survey, 60% of female journalists, who work in Ukraine, encountered threats, assaults, or other form of physical violence due to their professional activities. Of them, only 29% called police for protection.   The respondents indicated that most often they encountered threats (46% of the surveyed), compared to assaults, interrogations, and other types of physical violence.   Trolling and online bot attacks became the second category by frequency, mentioned by the surveyed journalists (34% of the surveyed mentioned this type of threats). Among other online threats, 12% of journalists mentioned hacking of accounts, 9.4% of journalists received letters with threats, and 4.3% experienced phishing attacks.   The journalists also were asked to indicate, where exactly they encountered assaults, threats, and other types of obstructions. It turned out that the majority of the surveyed encountered threats when covering conflict topics (41%), at protest actions (28%), 6.4% experienced obstruction as they interviewed people in power. In addition, IMI experts point out that 6.4% of the respondents indicated that they encountered threats in the office of their own media outlets.   The survey demonstrated that one in every five journalist encountered various types of sexual harassment when performing professional journalist duties.   The surveyed journalists indicated that they require additional security trainings specifically for women (43%), trainings for evaluation of risks and planning for them (36%), and improved security of media outlets offices (10%).   *The survey was conducted by means of anonymous questionnaires. In total, 110 answers were received from the journalists, of them 88% are representatives of all regions of Ukraine, and 12% are from Kyiv city.