This past week saw two femicides occur within days of one another in Peć/Peja and Uroševac/Ferizaj in Kosovo. These preventable tragedies are a sobering reminder that patriarchal violence and oppression of women in the region have continued unabated and in many cases are worsening.
In Serbia, the number of reported femicides has been increasing in recent years. The Kvinna til Kvinna women’s rights foundation produces an annual report about women’s rights in the western Balkans and reported that in 2023, there were 29 cases of reported femicide in Serbia as compared with 27 in 2022 and 20 in 2021. Given the various barriers to reporting, these figures are likely much higher.
This systemic misogyny begs the question: what role do various segments of society play in helping or hindering progress? Politicians and the institutions they lead undoubtably play the most outsized role, but their actions and statements are frequently contextualized (or not) by journalists reporting on gender-based violence. As such, the journalistic approach to covering such instances is of utmost importance.
It’s for this reason that the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers State University in the United States published a guide with suggestions on how to approach reporting on gender-based violence. The guide titled Silence and Omissions: A Media Guide for Covering Gender-Based Violence was produced by consulting experienced journalists with the intent of synthesizing best practices in one place. While the guide focuses on journalists, it also provides recommendations and resources for media trainers, gender and media studies academics and researchers, as well as NGO communications specialists.
The CWGL’s handbook is broken up into several sections, ranging from ethical principles of journalistic integrity, to practical questions of how to select which experts to interview. Regarding the former, the guide describes how and why it is critical that journalists contextualize the suffering of survivors in a way that nurtures their healing. To that end, the report emphasizes the need to tell the stories of survivors in a way that demonstrates their own agency in their pursuit of justice but also conveys a picture of a complex human being with depth beyond their trauma.
As a tangible recommendation, the report states: “This may entail providing contextual information showing that violence is neither normal nor inescapable, as well as addressing what is being done about it, through positive news or follow-up stories.”
Another section of the report shows why follow up reporting is particularly vital in a post-conflict context. The report cites a piece that Jelena Sesar wrote for Al Jazeera about the survivors of the “rape camps” in Bosnia during the wars of the 90s. She writes about how 25 years after the war, survivors struggle with unemployment as well as medical and psychological scars.
Regarding the state’s neglect of these women, she writes: “Since war crimes trials began in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2004, less than one percent of estimated victims’ cases have gone to court. Facing a huge backlog of war crimes cases, courts across the country have completed just 123 cases involving sexual violence charges.”
Sesar also includes quotes from survivors who spoke out about their treatment, including Sanja who stated: “I don’t trust anyone any more, especially not the state…They all failed me.” Sesar’s piece coincided with the publication of Amnesty International’s report on wartime rape victims in Bosnia called “We need your support, not pity.” In this way, Sesar’s article tells the stories of survivors with the aim of catalyzing action.
The CWGL report addresses these topics and more with case studies, personal essays from journalists that have reported on gender-based violence, as well as a list of terminology and resources. More than any of that, the report reminds journalists of their responsibility to victims of gender-based violence and society as a whole to both inform and empower the public in the ongoing quest for justice and equality for women.
A.M.
