ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Region capital Erbil commemorated World Press Freedom Day over the weekend with the Women’s Voice without Borders conference, focusing on the unique challenges female journalists face, especially in conflict zones. The event shed light on the issues women journalists encounter worldwide, with particular emphasis on those working in the Middle East.
The conference brought together more than 60 female journalists, human rights advocates and institutional representatives from across the region and Europe. It was sponsored by Rudaw, which was the sole media partner of the event.
Key organizations such as the French non-governmental organization Aide Humanitaire et Journalisme (AHJ) participated, supporting women in conflict zones, especially those impacted by war and discrimination. AHJ works to train refugees and women from war zones in journalism to help amplify their voices and assert their rights.
Lucie Feutrier-Cook, AHJ vice president, told Rudaw English that “the purpose of the conference is to focus on the tremendous challenge of women journalists in the region,” especially in conflict zones such as Syria, Palestine and Lebanon.
She noted that among the challenges female journalists in these countries face is “finding protection and resisting partisan or political pressure [while doing their job], and finding a way to still touch the audience” at a time when there is a “tremendous flow of information and [a face-paced] course of events.”
Emphasizing the importance of “solidarity among women journalists,” Feutrier-Cook stressed that female journalists in the region should also work to “expand their network, their experiences, and their methods of protection, and to find free space, a free platform to raise their voice, but freely, independently.”
Syrian media landscape
The Women’s Voice without Borders conference also featured a number of media workers from volatile regions, who shed light on the specific challenges journalists in their countries face.
Speaking to Rudaw English about the media landscape in her country Syria, Hadeel Arja, the founder of Tiny Hands - an independent digital media platform dedicated to telling the stories of children in conflict and crisis zones – highlighted that journalists in Syria have faced ongoing challenges, both before and after the fall of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in early December.
She highlighted that among the most pressing challenges journalists in Syria are grappling with is “ensuring the [people’s] access to information,” which “requires a lot of support for independent platforms, training for journalists,” as well as “more fact-checking to verify the information and to establish platforms citizens can trust.”
She noted that amid the fast-paced developments in Syria, “We do not have time to create new platforms. There are platforms that have proven themselves for years, but they need more support to grow their team and be able to deliver accurate information.”
After the fall of Assad in early December, acts of violence erupted in several parts of Syria many of which were instigated or exacerbated by rumors on social media.
Arja warned about the dangers of misinformation spreading quickly and of “viewers and readers acting based on the information [they receive] from social media, without being sure of it.”
“We need a strong alternative because day by day, the situation is getting worse, and rumors are spreading rapidly. People are reacting to these rumors without verifying the information,” she explained.
Arja stressed that, “The Syrian people have been waiting for years to open a new page; it is unfortunate that we are finding ourselves in such circumstances,” stressing that, “Journalists must play in countering misinformation and providing reliable news.”
In early March, violence erupted in the Alawite-majority coastal areas of western Syria after loyalists of ousted Syrian dictator Assad launched attacks on security forces affiliated with the new Syrian leadership.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that around 1,700 people, mostly Alawite civilians, were killed in the violence, adding that most casualties were caused by government or government-affiliated forces.
Arja’s organization, Tiny Hands, led an investigation to document the cases of child fatalities in the Alawite-majority regions.
“We were able to confirm [the killing of] more than 60 children, this is while I was not able to reach all the villages and affected areas.”
She noted to Rudaw English, that the most worrisome finding her organization came across during its investigation was the inability to identify a unified description of the killers.
“There was no single description. They [perpetrators] were different, they spoke in different dialects, and had different features, they dressed differently, and the way they murdered [people] was also different,” Arja noted.
“Some of them [perpetrators] were killing entire families, others were killing only men. There was not a unified character to gather. As a journalist, I was able to gather these testimonies, but I was not able to reach a conclusion.”
In the aftermath of the deadly violence in the Alawite-majority regions, Syria’s interim President Sharaa in mid-March ordered the formation of an "independent national committee" to "investigate and look into” the causes of the violence in western Syria. In early April, Sharaa extended the committee’s mission for an additional three months.
Arja hoped that it would produce concrete conclusions.
“We hope the committee gives us conclusions, tells us the real numbers [of victims], shares the testimonies, reveals who the killers are and most importantly inform us how this killer will be held accountable.”
Plight of Palestinian journalists
In October 2023, the Palestinian movement Hamas launched a large-scale incursion into southern Israel, killing more than 1,170 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel responded with a massive offensive in Gaza that killed 52,000 people, mostly Palestinian civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Some 118,014 have also been wounded.
Following 15 months of war, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire which went into effect in mid-January. However, on March 18, Israel launched new attacks on Gaza, killing more than 2,300 Palestinians and injuring more than 2500 others, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israel says the offensive aims to secure the return of 59 hostages still held by Hamas.
Munia Dweik, the Palestine office manager at the private-owned Jordanian channel, Roya TV, stressed to Rudaw English the severe challenges Palestinian journalists face.
“We have reached a stage where international law is not protecting any Palestinian, let alone Palestinian journalists,” Dweik said, adding that the challenges posed ahead of Palestinian journalists are multiplied and include transportation in different regions, as well as protection and security.
“Armors do not protect the Palestinian journalists, the word press does not protect the Palestinian journalists... nothing prevents them from becoming targets.”
She further noted that Palestinian journalists also need psychological support. “The scenes they have seen, the circumstances they lived, the displacement they go through over and over again… due to all of this and more, Palestinian journalists need professional psychological support,” she argued.
Palestinian female journalists, according to Dweik, suffer even further.
“Many of the female journalists are mothers. They say goodbye to their children every day before they go to work, unaware if they themselves will stay alive, or if their children will.”
Despite the increasing normalization of violence in Gaza, Dweik urged journalists and human rights defenders to keep the situation in Gaza in the spotlight. “At the start of the [Hamas-Israel] war, there was a global outcry, but now it seems the world has become desensitized to the images coming out of Gaza,” she noted.
“We must continue to talk about Gaza.”
Representing the French foreign ministry at the conference was Isabelle Rome, human rights ambassador at Paris’s ministry of foreign affairs.
“I am very happy to be here and I think it is important that this event had the support of the [French] government,” she told Rudaw English, adding that her main message at the forum is “to believe in women and to think that women can be actors of peace and freedom.”
