Shame or embarrassment is the dominating reason for female journalists not reporting about sexual harassment at workplace.
A research report on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalist: A Fiji Case Study”, launched by the University of the South Pacific Journalism program and the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement yesterday, stated that because of this, respondents were less likely to report sexual harassment that occurred in the workplace.
The report covers both current and former female journalist across print, broadcast and electric media and is based on questionnaire survey of 42 respondents and in-depth interviews of 23 respondents.
“Only 40 per cent said they reported any such incidents,” the report stated. Explaining the research findings, USP head of Journalism program Dr Shailendra Singh said this was a fairly low reporting rate.
“And the dominate reason for not reporting is the feeling of shame so there’s sort of some misunderstanding about this on the part of the victims,” he said.
“They are feeling the shame instead of feeling some kind of anger or outrage in reporting these incidents.”
He said this was because of the stigma attached to sexual harassment and lack of knowledge about what constituted sexual harassment.
“The other reasons for not reporting sexual harassment were lack of confidence in the reporting system and fear of reprisals.”
He said there was an incident where the victim did not report because she was worried about the perpetrator losing his job.
When the cases were reported, just over half the cases ended with a warning for the fellow employee, only 17 per cent ended in termination and 12 per cent was suspension of the perpetrators.
He said one of the positive outcomes of the research was that when cases were reported in most of the cases action was taken by the media organisation.
The report has recommended for all media organisations to implement the sexual harassment policy to the fullest. It said the policy should include well-defined reporting mechanisms, including criminal proceedings if warranted.
