Women in News has developed a practical toolkit for media employers and employees to deal with and prevent sexual harassment in their media organisations. The toolkit is currently available in English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Burmese and Russian.
What is in the Toolkit:
1- Practical guide for media employers and employees (Download here)
2- Awareness poster (A2) to put up in newsrooms and offices (Download here)
3- Sample sexual harassment policy (Download here)
4- Sample sexual harassment survey (Download here)
5- Sample communications templates (Download here)
Who is this guide for?
This guide is designed for both employers and employees within the media industry.
As a media employer – senior executive, manager, human resources – this guide will help you to:
– Understand your professional and legal obligations to protect your employees against sexual harassment at work
– Know how to identify sexual harassment in your organisation
– Be able to identify employees most at risk of being sexually harassed
– Develop an organisational sexual harassment policy
– Develop preventative measures to stamp out sexual harassment in your organisation
– Develop procedures to handle sexual harassment complaints
– Develop strategies to provide support for employees who have been sexually harassed.
As a media employee or contract worker, this guide will help you to:
– Know what your rights at work are
– Know when you or someone else is being sexually harassed
– Know what behaviour is not acceptable
– Know what steps to take if you are being sexually harassed at work or you think someone else is
What the guide does and does not do
While this guide addresses multiple issues and perspectives related to sexual harassment, it is not exhaustive. This guide does not focus on the sexual harassment and security threats faced by women journalists out in the field. There are excellent resources that do this already and they are referenced in this guide. It also does not address in any detail the pervasive and evolving problem of online harassment, an issue we hope to develop resources on soon. Finally, this guide does not and cannot reconcile the incalculable professional cost to female media professionals who have missed out on promotions, breaking stories or other opportunities for career progression as a result of having to navigate sexual harassment along their professional paths. This uneven playing field is one that the industry must confront openly and honestly to move forward.
We are indebted to our peers in the industry who have so openly shared their expertise, processes and internal tools to help us develop this practical guide. Together we will identify collective solutions to increase women’s leadership and voices in the news.
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