Harassment of Female Journalists in Poland. Zamenhof Institute Report

photo: Anete Lusina/CC0/Pexels

• 59% of surveyed female journalists have suffered sexual harassment at least once
• 39% experienced unwanted touching or attempted touching, causing discomfort
• 26% were touched in an unambiguously sexual manner against their will
• 14% faced suggestions of benefits in exchange for sexual submission
• 13% were subjected to attempts to force sex or other sexual acts
• 5% experienced sexual intercourse or other sexual acts against their will.

The report shows that the perpetrators of sexual harassment in journalism are most often superiors or individuals in higher positions than the victim—this is the case in 65% of incidents. This publication is the result of one and a half years of work by institute experts and researchers, along with specialists from Kantar Public, who helped conduct the survey on a sample of 268 female journalists in Poland.


- In this project, we wanted to give women a voice and, on their behalf, present stories of harassment that they had never spoken about before. This is the first study on sexual harassment in Poland, which we hope will bring attention to the problem, spark a substantive discussion, and prompt publishers to develop standards for handling such situations - comments Nikola Bochyńska, board member of the Zamenhof Institute and co-author of the report.

- The #Offtherecord project creates a space for journalists to share the taboo of discrimination and sexual harassment, a safe space they haven’t had before. I am deeply grateful for their courage and for all the support we received in creating this project - adds Natalia Żaba, co-author of the report.

The report`s authors also questioned major Polish media companies about their procedures for handling harassment cases in the newsroom. Only a few media companies provided the Zamenhof Institute with policies applicable to their employees.


- We were surprised that so many large media companies, including public broadcasters, completely ignore this problem and lack internal procedures allowing, for example, anonymous reporting of sexual harassment or protecting the harassed individual - says Paweł Prus, president of the Zamenhof Institute and co-author of the project. - Our research shows that one in three harassed journalists changed jobs because of this. Publishers who ignore or don’t want to recognize the problem of sexual harassment lose valuable employees as a result.

The stories of journalists described in the report can be explored in full on the platform offtherecord.zamenhof.pl and the complete report can be downloaded: “Off The Record: Sexual Harassment of Female Journalists in Poland”.

The report’s authors are: Nikola Bochyńska, Paweł Prus, and Natalia Żaba, with co-authors Piotr Drabik, Bogna Kietlińska, Urszula Krassowska (Kantar Public), and Martyna Mucha (Kantar Public).

Project partners include: Kantar Public, Havenocode.io, Loewen Legal Hub, Sexed.PL, Propsy PR, and Tech to the Rescue. Media partners are Forbes Women and Newsweek Polska.