A/HRC/44/52 I. Introduction 1. The report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Dubravka Šimonović, is submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 41/17. In her report, the Special Rapporteur addresses gender-based violence faced by women journalists in their daily work. 2. The Special Rapporteur seeks to highlight the causes and consequences of genderbased violence against women journalists, which has been exacerbated in recent times by online violence, and in this regard to provide recommendations to States and other relevant stakeholders on how to prevent and combat gender-based violence against women journalists and ensure that they can work in a safe environment. 3. In preparing the present report, the Special Rapporteur sought contributions from Member States, international and regional organizations, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organizations and media outlets. The Special Rapporteur is sincerely grateful to all those who submitted a response and shared their testimonies. 1 The Special Rapporteur is also very grateful to the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, New Jersey, for hosting an online expert group meeting on 13 March 2020 in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Association of Women in Radio and Television.2 4. For the purposes of the present report, journalism refers to an activity that consists of the collection and dissemination of information to the public through any means of communication and applies to all persons involved in a journalistic process providing information to the public, including editors, commentators, freelancers and part-time authors, communicators, bloggers and citizen journalists. 3 II. Activities undertaken by the Special Rapporteur 5. On 4 October 2019, the Special Rapporteur addressed the General Assembly at its seventy-fourth session, pursuant to Assembly resolution 71/170, presenting her thematic report on a human rights-based approach to mistreatment and violence against women in reproductive health services, with a focus on childbirth or obstetric violence (A/74/137). 6. On 29 and 30 October 2019, the Special Rapporteur attended the Beijing+25 regional review meeting organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. During the two-day meeting, the Special Rapporteur delivered a statement on the theme of “Ending violence against women and girls: lessons and solutions from the region”. The outcome document of the review recognizes the Special Rapporteur’s initiative, in which she called on all States to establish a “femicide watch”, or a “genderrelated killing of women watch”. The initiative is included in the policy recommendations on violence against women set out in the document, namely that all countries should establish multidisciplinary national bodies such as a “femicide watch”, with the aim of actively working on the prevention of femicide or gender-related killing of women.4 7. On 31 October 2019, the Special Rapporteur met with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in the course of its seventy-fourth session in Geneva, during which she discussed the framework of cooperation between the Committee 1 2 3 4 The full list of submissions received can be found at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/VAWJournalists.aspx. Owing to the restrictions in place as a result of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the meeting was hosted entirely online and facilitated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and the Special Rapporteur out of New York City. See Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 34 (2011) on the freedoms of opinion and expression, para. 44; and Council of Europe, recommendation No. R (2000)7 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the right of journalists not to disclose their sources of information (March 2000). ECE/AC.28/2019/2, annex I, para. 31 (j). 3