A new regional Declaration on Improving the Safety of Women Journalists in the Western Balkans has been adopted at the conference “Journalism Under Attack: An Age of Repression and Resistance”, which was held from September 29 to October 1, 2025.
The text is open for signatures by journalists’ associations, unions, media outlets, public institutions, civil society organizations, and individual journalists and experts across the region. All interested stakeholders can support the Declaration by adding their signature at the following link by November 25.
Declaration – Full Text
We, representatives of journalist associations, unions, media outlets, public institutions, civil society organizations, and individual journalists and experts from across the Western Balkans, gathered at the Regional Conference “Journalism Under Attack: An Age of Repression and Resistance”, recognize that ensuring the safety of women journalists is an essential condition for safeguarding freedom of expression, strengthening democracy, and guaranteeing citizens’ right to information.
Despite existing commitments to gender equality, women journalists across the region continue to face disproportionate risks, including online harassment, physical intimidation, workplace discrimination, and gender-based violence. These risks are often compounded by intersecting forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, or other social and economic conditions, creating multiple layers of vulnerability. Weak institutional responses, fragmented legal frameworks, and entrenched gender norms have created an environment in which violence and harassment are frequently minimized or go unpunished, forcing many women journalists into self-censorship.
Public institutions bear duties to protect fundamental rights, while media organizations, journalist associations, unions, civil society, and international partners provide advocacy, monitoring, solidarity, and support. Together, we will contribute to advancing a safe, enabling environment for women journalists across the Western Balkans, consistent with our shared European perspective.
Shared Principles
- Gender equality, freedom of expression, and media freedom are fundamental rights at the core of democracy and European integration.
- All measures must adopt a victim-centered and intersectional approach, ensuring tailored protection and support.
- Safety requires the active engagement and solidarity of all colleagues—women and men, editors and managers—in building inclusive, supportive newsrooms; this includes freelancers and others in precarious roles.
- Regional solidarity and European cooperation are essential to strengthening the safety of women journalists.
Commitments by State Institutions
- We will work toward aligning national legal frameworks with UN, EU, and Council of Europe standards, including the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention, GREVIO recommendations, and EU accession benchmarks, to prevent gender-based violence and promote accountability for threats and attacks.
- We will strengthen the capacity of law enforcement and judicial authorities to respond promptly and effectively to threats, both physical and digital, using gender-sensitive, victim-centered approaches.
- We will support fair labour standards in the media sector by addressing informality and promoting social protections, in cooperation with unions and professional associations.
- We will work toward ensuring that accessible mechanisms are in place to address workplace harassment and discrimination, with protection against retaliation.
- We will continue aligning with the EU acquis, implementing obligations that hold technology companies accountable for gender-based online violence, while establishing systematic collection and publication of gender-disaggregated data on threats against journalists.
- We will work to ensure effective institutional responses so that threats and attacks against women journalists are adequately investigated with due process.
Commitments by Media Associations, Unions, and Civil Society
- We commit to advocating for the enforcement of legal and regulatory frameworks, ensuring that laws and institutional measures are not only adopted but also effectively implemented, and to holding authorities accountable through monitoring, reporting, and active engagement in public debate and policy processes.
- We commit to promoting and advocating with media outlets to adopt and implement gender-aware newsroom safety protocols that address physical risks, online harassment, digital security, psychosocial and medical support, and overall social welfare for women journalists.
- We commit to establishing and strengthening independent mechanisms within media organizations to prevent and address sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination, and other forms of abuse in the workplace, ensuring that women journalists can report violations safely and receive support.
- We commit to promoting equal opportunities and fair working conditions for women journalists, including secure contracts, maternity rights, and representation in leadership roles, while unions commit to reinforcing collective bargaining to defend the rights of women in the profession.
- We commit to providing support services for women journalists under threat, including legal aid, psychological assistance, medical care, and financial support, while also monitoring and publicly reporting on cases of violence and discrimination.
- We commit to engaging in regional and international exchanges of good practices, ensuring that lessons learned are shared and that solidarity across borders strengthens the resilience of women journalists.
Joint Commitments
Each actor, acting in good faith and within its mandate, strives to ensure complementarity and foster cooperation, acknowledging that sustainable progress on the safety of women journalists depends on collective effort:
- We will foster structured cooperation among institutions, media, unions, civil society, and international partners to support the safety of women journalists and media freedom.
- We will strengthen regional research and advocacy mechanisms, including through networks such as the SafeJournalists platform, to document threats, collect disaggregated data, and provide evidence-based recommendations, thereby driving advocacy actions.
- We will convene regular regional forums to keep the safety of women journalists high on political and public agendas, linking it to democratic consolidation and EU integration.
- We will promote solidarity among journalists, ensuring that women and men colleagues stand together against harassment, threats, and discrimination, and cultivate a culture of mutual support within the profession.
- We will support strengthening protection measures, including rapid-response support where possible, for women journalists facing imminent threats.
- We will enhance cooperation with international organizations and networks—including the European Union, Council of Europe, OSCE, United Nations, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners, and others—to align protection of women journalists in the Western Balkans with international standards and good practices.
By adopting this Declaration, we affirm our shared responsibility to create a safe, equitable, and enabling environment for women journalists across the Western Balkans. Protecting women journalists is protecting democracy itself.
