“A journalist’s ill-considered behavior may reflect on a survivor of sexual violence,” Lina Kushch

The training titled Interviews With Survivors Of Sexual Violence. How Not To Violate The Norms Of The Law Or The Law Itself for media representatives took place at the StopKor press center.

The First Secretary of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), Lina Kushch, who took part in the training, told how not to violate the norms of the law or the law itself during interviews with survivors of sexual violence and shared cases of Ukrainian journalists who cover the topics of sexual violence – both positive and negative.

Lina Kushch and human rights defender/citizen journalist/communications director of the SEMA Ukraine non-governmental organization, Liudmyla Huseinova, talked about the aspects of creating material about high-profile cases related to sexual violence and explained how correspondents should communicate with survivors in order not to hurt their feelings.

The First Secretary of the NUJU gave her colleagues advice from her own experience on how to prepare for interviews with survivors:

• before taking this topic, tell about yourself, show your professionalism;
• demonstrate that you have already worked with the topic of violence and know all the specifics, and will not harm the person;
• share the information about how you are going to cover the story, where it will be possible to read it, how long the publication will be available, and what media it will be distributed through.

Lina Kushch gave an example of a story about a high-profile rape case in the Zakarpattia Region involving minors. In it, the journalists showed relatives of the survivors and the suspects themselves, albeit with their faces blurred. The commission on journalistic ethics considered the case and found two violations. In particular, the journalist’s Code of Ethics provides for respect for a person’s private life. In addition, the journalist must do everything in his power not to harm the survivors or the accused. However, the colleagues, in their story, made public the data of minors – boys who are accused of rape, as well as data that make it possible to identify the survivor.

Lina Kushch noted that in the material, the journalists did not focus on the crime but on the personality of the survivor and private information about the survivor and the attackers, and they also focused on savoring the details.

The NUJU First Secretary also said that sexual crimes are also committed against men, especially during wartime, but this topic is taboo in Ukraine.

Speakers were: practicing sexologist Nadiya Aleksina, consultant to the Office of the Government Commissioner for Gender Policy Anatolii Dosych, journalist/former head of the press service of the Kyiv Region Police/co-author of the international project Healing Invisible Wounds/founder of the LUTIY24 and NEZLAMNA media platforms, Iryna Tkach, lawyer of Strategic Advocacy Serhii Rudenko; and vice-president of the La Strada-Ukraine non-governmental organization, Kateryna Borozdina.

Photo: StopCor