A/HRC/44/52 14. The Special Rapporteur had also planned to present a booklet issued by the Platform entitled: “25 years in review of the Beijing Platform for Action: contributions of the Platform of independent expert mechanisms on discrimination and violence against women towards its implementation”. 10 The main message included in the booklet is that in the review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action and in other review processes the indispensable role played by the seven independent expert human rights mechanisms in their implementation should be recognized. 15. On 27 March 2020, the Special Rapporteur issued a press release calling on States to combat domestic violence in the context of COVID-19 and that while making significant efforts to address the COVID-19 threat, they should not leave behind women and children victims of domestic violence, as this could lead to an increase in domestic violence, including intimate partner femicides. In that context, the Special Rapporteur also issued a call for submissions on COVID-19 and the increase in domestic violence against women. 11 She also issued a separate call for submissions to inform her proposed thematic report to the General Assembly in October 2020 on rape as a grave and systematic human rights violation and an issue of gender-based violence against women.12 16. The Special Rapporteur conducted two country visits in 2019, to Bulgaria from 14 to 21 October (see A/HRC/44/52/Add.1) and to Ecuador from 29 November to 9 December (see A/HRC/44/52/Add.2). At the time of writing, proposed country visits to Mongolia and Papua New Guinea, planned for 2020, are on hold owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. III. Manifestation of gender-based violence against women journalists 17. The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women specifies that violence against women, including against women journalists, comprises any act of genderbased violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. In its general recommendation No. 19 (1992) on violence against women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women noted that the definition of discrimination included gender-based violence, namely violence directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. Men and women journalists are both exposed to violence and threats to their safety in the course of their work; however women journalists are disproportionately targeted by gender-based violence and sexual harassment, both within the work place and online. 18. Women journalists are expected to fit into stereotyped roles and sexualized images of women and to operate within unequal power relationships between men and women in the media world. They are often targeted for being highly visible and outspoken and for their work, especially when they are breaking the rules of gender inequity and stereotypes. Many women journalists also face intersectional discrimination and gender-based violence because of other characteristics such as, but not limited to, race, religion, ethnicity or minority affiliation. Gender-based violence against women online, and especially against women journalists who use information and communications technologies (ICTs) as tools for their work, includes any act of violence that is committed, assisted or aggravated in part or fully by the use of ICTs, such as mobile phones and smartphones, the Internet, social media platforms or email, against a woman because she is a woman, or that affects women disproportionately (A/HRC/38/47, para. 23). 10 11 12 The publication was distributed electronically to all delegations to the Commission and sent to all permanent missions on 9 March 2020. It is available from ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/SR/Booklet_BPA.pdf. See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/call_covid19.aspx. See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/SRVAW.aspx. 5