The SafeJournalists network adopted the Declaration on Improving the Safety of Female Journalists in the Western Balkans.

The Declaration is open for signing by journalists' associations, unions, media, public institutions, civil society organizations, as well as individual journalists and experts across the Western Balkans. You can leave your signature at the following link until November 25.

Text of the Declaration:

We, representatives of journalists' associations and unions, media, public institutions, civil society organizations, and individual journalists and experts from across the Western Balkans, gathered at the regional conference “Journalism Under Attack: The Age of Unfreedom and Unwavering Professionalism,” recognize that ensuring the safety of female journalists is a key condition for protecting freedom of expression, strengthening democracy, and guaranteeing citizens' right to information.

Despite existing commitments in the area of gender equality, female journalists throughout the region continue to face disproportionate risks, including online harassment, physical intimidation, workplace discrimination, and gender-based violence. These risks are often exacerbated by the intersection of other forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, or other social and economic conditions, creating multiple layers of vulnerability. Weak institutional responses, fragmented legal frameworks, and entrenched gender norms have created an environment where violence and harassment are often downplayed or go unpunished, forcing many female journalists into self-censorship.

Public institutions have a duty to protect fundamental rights, while media organizations, journalists' associations, unions, civil society, and international partners provide advocacy, monitoring, solidarity, and support. Together, we will contribute to creating a safe and supportive environment for female journalists across the Western Balkans, in line with our shared European perspective.

Common Principles

• Gender equality, freedom of expression, and media freedom are fundamental rights at the core of democracy and European integration.
• All measures must adopt a victim-centered and intersectional approach, ensuring tailored protection and support.
• Safety requires the active engagement and solidarity of all colleagues—women and men, editors and managers—in building inclusive and supportive newsrooms; this includes freelancers and others in insecure forms of work.
• Regional solidarity and European cooperation are essential for enhancing the safety of female journalists.

Obligations of State Institutions

• We will work on aligning national legal frameworks with the standards of the UN, EU, and the Council of Europe, including the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention, GREVIO recommendations, and EU accession criteria, to prevent gender-based violence and ensure accountability for threats and attacks.
• We will strengthen the capacities of law enforcement and the judiciary to respond timely and effectively to threats—both physical and digital—using gender-sensitive victim-oriented approaches.
• We will support fair labor standards in the media sector by addressing informality and enhancing social protection, in collaboration with unions and professional associations.
• We will work on ensuring accessible mechanisms for addressing harassment and discrimination in the workplace, with protections against retaliation.
• We will continue aligning with EU legal standards, implementing obligations that emphasize the responsibility of technology companies for gender-based online violence, while establishing systematic collection and publication of gender-disaggregated data on threats to journalists.
• We will work on ensuring effective institutional responses to ensure that threats and attacks on female journalists are adequately investigated with respect for due process.

Obligations of Media Associations, Unions, and Civil Society

• We commit to advocating for the implementation of legal and regulatory frameworks, ensuring that laws and institutional measures are not only adopted but also effectively applied, and that we hold authorities accountable through monitoring, reporting, and active participation in public debates and policy-making processes.
• We commit to promoting and advocating for the adoption and implementation of gender-sensitive safety protocols in newsrooms by media, addressing physical risks, online harassment, digital safety, psychosocial and medical support, and overall social protection for female journalists.
• We commit to establishing and strengthening independent mechanisms within media organizations to prevent and address sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and other forms of workplace abuse, ensuring that female journalists can safely report rights violations and receive support.
• We commit to promoting equal opportunities and fair working conditions for female journalists, including secure contracts, maternity rights, and representation in leadership positions; unions commit to strengthening collective bargaining to protect women's rights in the profession.
• We commit to providing support services for female journalists under threat, including legal assistance, psychological support, medical care, and financial aid, as well as monitoring and publicly reporting on cases of violence and discrimination.
• We commit to regional and international exchanges of best practices, ensuring that lessons learned are shared and that cross-border solidarity strengthens the resilience of female journalists.

Joint Commitments

Each actor, acting in good faith and within their mandate, seeks to ensure complementarity and foster cooperation, recognizing that sustainable progress regarding the safety of female journalists depends on collective effort:

• We will promote structured cooperation between institutions, media, unions, civil society, and international partners to support the safety of female journalists and media freedom.
• We will strengthen regional mechanisms for research and advocacy, including networks such as the SafeJournalists platform, to document threats, collect disaggregated data, and provide evidence-based recommendations, thereby promoting advocacy actions.
• We will regularly convene regional forums to keep the safety of female journalists high on political and public agendas, linking it to the consolidation of democracy and the process of European integration.
• We will promote solidarity among journalists, ensuring that colleagues—both women and men—stand together against harassment, threats, and discrimination and nurture a culture of mutual support in the profession.
• We will support the strengthening of protective measures, including, where possible, rapid response mechanisms for female journalists facing immediate threats.
• We will enhance cooperation with international organizations and networks—including the European Union, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the United Nations, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), partners from the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) program, and others—to align the protection of female journalists in the Western Balkans with international standards and best practices.

By adopting this Declaration, we affirm our shared responsibility to create a safe, fair, and supportive environment for female journalists across the Western Balkans. Protecting female journalists is protecting democracy itself.

You can read the text of the declaration in English here.

Source: SafeJournalists