On 28 October 2026 Ana Carmo reported on an event organised by the Permanent Mission of Greece, gender equality agency UN Women, and the UN education and culture agency, UNESCO,Every Voice for Peace Counts: New Perspectives on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.
“Every woman journalist driven out of a conflict zone is a peace process that loses its witness,” said Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, addressing the United Nations this week. Ms. Ressa, who has faced arrest, legal cases and sustained online attacks, reiterated how intimidation can wear down journalists’ credibility and confidence, threaten their safety and ultimately kill their determination to continue reporting. At the height of the attacks against her, she received 90 hate messages an hour
Artificial intelligence is adding to the threat, enabling deepfakes, fabricated sexual images, cloned voices and coordinated attacks to spread at scale.
According to UN Women data, nearly one in four women human rights defenders, activists and journalists reported experiencing AI-enabled abuse which in time can manifest as physical violence.
Recent research highlights how online attacks – once dismissed as “virtual” problems – are now spilling offline, affecting women’s safety, well-being, and ability to participate freely in public debate.
Ms. Ressa called for online violence to be treated as such, arguing for stronger accountability for perpetrators and technology companies that amplify abuse, sustained funding for women-led journalism, and the inclusion of women journalists in peace and security discussions.
Protecting women journalists is not only about individual safety. It is also about whose experiences of conflict are documented, whose voices shape public understanding and whose contributions to peace are recognised.
“When women journalists are silenced, the women whose stories they are telling are also silenced,” said UN Women Deputy Executive Director for Normative Support, UN System Coordination, and Programme Results, Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda. “So, it’s not just the silencing of the journalists, it’s the silencing of our collective story.”
Women in conflict settings are often portrayed as victims, she noted, despite their roles in preventing violence, mediating disputes, sustaining communities and rebuilding societies. When their experiences go unreported, the public sees only part of the reality of war, “half of the picture of peace”.
The scale of the problem is stark. According to a recent study by UN Women and UNESCO, 75 per cent of women journalists surveyed had experienced online violence. Forty-two per cent linked online attacks to abuse or assault in the physical world, up from 20 per cent in 2020.
International frameworks for protecting journalists already exist. Yet women journalists continue to face physical violence, legal harassment, psychological trauma and online campaigns designed to discredit their reporting.
As the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists approaches on 2 November, UNESCO is preparing to launch a new campaign – Threats Evolve, Impunity Endures – alongside new findings on journalist safety and impunity.
“Every voice for peace counts,” said Ms. Ressa, “but a voice only counts if it is heard, if that woman survives being heard.”
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