Engaging Indonesian mass media to advocate ILO’s Violence and Harassment Convention

The Alliance of Independent Journalist (AJI) Indonesia and the ILO conducted a quick media scanning to learn about the media portrayal on issues related to violence and harassment at work. The media scanning was part of the series of media engagement activities held from December 2021 to March 2022 to greater involve mass media organizations and professionals in the promotion and advocacy the ILO Convention No. 190 (C190).

C190 is the first international treaty to recognize the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment.

This issue also affects journalists. Therefore, we should mainstream this issue and encourage the development of better regulations, reporting mechanism and protection."

Jajang Jamaludin, editor-in-chief of Koran Tempo

The media scanning found that Indonesian mass media still focused its reporting on violence and harassment cases with main resources from governments, institutions/enterprises, academia but none from the surviving victims and/or counsellors. Thus, it recommended the mass media to have a better understanding about principles of C190, explore various news angles with more interviews and data, present resources from workers and survivors and focus on prevention and solution.

The key findings and recommendations of the media scanning was discussed during the editorial meeting as the first media engagement activity. Held in December 2021, the online meeting was attended by 15 editor-in-chiefs and editors from national and regional media. The participating editors recognized workplace violence and harassment as an increasingly emerging issue. However, lack of regulations, lack of reporting mechanism and lack of victim-based protection have made many cases went underreported.

Jajang Jamaludin, editor-in-chief of Koran Tempo, shared the best practice to handle cases in his newspaper by developing a reporting mechanism and integrate violence and harassment issue in company’s collective bargaining agreement. “This issue also affects journalists. Therefore, we should mainstream this issue and encourage the development of better regulations, reporting mechanism and protection,” he added.

As an immediate follow-up to the meeting, an online journalist training was conducted in January 2022 for eight sessions with a total duration of 16 hours. During the training, 25 selected journalists learnt about key principles of C190, existing law and regulations, employment conditions, efforts taken by companies to provide safe workplaces and gender-based violence, including digital violence.

In addition, many participants expressed the training as a good opportunity to reflect their own working conditions and build their capacity to prevent violence and harassment against mass media professionals and workers in media industry.

Through these series of activities, we hope to build the commitment and the capacity of media organizations and professionals from up to bottom, from editor-in-chief to reporter levels."

Dyah Retno Sudarto, ILO’s programme coordinator for C190 on work violence and harassment issues

The training concluded with the submission of reporting proposals from the participating journalists. Ten proposals were selected to be part of the media fellowship programme conducted for two months from February to March 2022. The in-depth reporting and articles from these series of activities were compiled and published under the title “Safe Environment to Work” (read article about actions taken by Indonesian mass media).

“We begin our media engagement activities with the editorial meeting, continued by media training and fellowship programmes. Through these series of activities, we hope to build the commitment and the capacity of media organizations and professionals from up to bottom, from editor-in-chief to reporter levels,” said Dyah Retno Sudarto, ILO’s programme coordinator for C190 on work violence and harassment issues.

These series of media engagement activities are part of the ILO’s global and national campaign to promote the ratification and implementation of C190. The campaign has invited the participation of all its member States and the public at large, including mass media organizations and professionals.