Abuse and cyberbullying of women journalists is unacceptable - Kiran

It is unacceptable that women journalists are increasingly targeted for doing their jobs—with attempts to silence them through intimidation, abuse and digital disinformation.

This has been highlighted by Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran while opening the inaugural two-day Women in Media Conference at the GPH this morning where the theme is "Resilience in a rapidly evolving media landscape".

Kiran says in a short time, WiM Fiji has launched impactful initiatives—from financial literacy and mental health support to climate advocacy and journalism mentorship.

She says their work is not just empowering women in media—it’s transforming the industry.

The Minister says despite this, even as women in media break new ground, they do so while navigating unique and serious risks where online harassment, cyberbullying and technology-facilitated gender-based violence are growing threats.

The Minister says this is why movements like WiM Fiji are not just valuable—they are vital and by fostering resilience, creating safe peer networks and providing advocacy in the digital realm, WiM Fiji is standing up against violence in all its form.

She also confirmed that the review of the Online Safety Act will begin at the end of the month and hopes submissions will be made to give it more power to deal with emerging challenges with cyberbullying.

Kiran further highlighted that in the evolving media landscape and era of social media, their hard work is often hijacked by keyboard warriors who just copy paste their work on their social media pages without acknowledging their sacrifices.

She hopes some of these challenges can be dissected at forums like this to see how women in media and their work can be better protected and acknowledged.

While highlighting that only 35 percent of women are represented on boards and 5 percent in parliament, Kiran says a large number of people in our population obviously do not see women as decision makers even though our women, our mothers not only shape our lives but make decisions on a daily basis, but unfortunately the perception is they can make decisions at home but not in business or politics.

She stresses that through the hard work, of women journalists, women are empowered not only to speak up, but to lead.