Over the past 10 years, a journalist is killed every four days and nine out of 10 killings go unpunished.

Killing a journalist is the ultimate form of censorship, and many more journalists around the world face kidnappings, torture, violence and harassment.

In Afghanistan, such violence and intimidation are reaching new heights, including widespread reports of journalists being killed as the Taliban took control of the country. Unifor is working tirelessly with other journalism organizations, including Journalists for Human Rights and the International Federation of Journalists, to get journalists and other media workers out of the country.

It doesn’t stop there.

Today online harassment and violence, specifically targeting women and racialized journalists, is occurring at an alarming and increasing rate.

This abuse takes many forms, including misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, harassment, sexual harassment, violent threats, cyberstalking, doxing, trolling, gaslighting and misinformation. Threats of violence against the journalists and their families – including infant children – are all-too common.

Such deliberate acts are meant to bully journalists into silence, trying and failing to intimidate them from doing their jobs or covering the stories that people who perpetuate this violence don’t like.

Politicians such as former U.S. President Donald Trump and People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier have even encouraged such behaviour, taking the harassment of journalists to an entirely new and disturbing level.

This can be tolerated no longer. For many years, reporters were told they just needed a thicker skin and should learn to live with the hate mail they received. It could even be part of the dark humour so common in newsrooms.

No longer. Journalists around the world, including here in Canada, have faced this abuse long enough. As more women and racialized workers joined newsrooms, the abuse targeting journalists has increased.

It is time for action. The journalists themselves are speaking out, and the media organizations they work for are beginning to address the issue in a real way, thanks in large part to the work of journalists and their unions.

All workers can and must do more.

Unifor is creating a plan that engages members and works in collaboration with a coalition of allies including the Canadian Association of Journalists to put an end to this abuse. Discussion, training, broad-based engagement, a concerted lobby effort to hold online platforms accountable for the content published on their websites and an enhanced support system for those who this violence will be the cornerstone of our approach to combat these issues.

Journalism is at the heart of our democracy. Attempts to silence it are nothing less than an attempt to thwart democracy itself – and cannot be tolerated.

Each October 18, Canada marks Persons Day. On this day, the Privy Council declared some women to be persons under the Constitution they gained the right to be appointed to public office including the Senate of Canada.

This right was not open to most women based on class and race. Reviewing our legislatures and the Senate today, not a lot has changed.

Women continue to make up fewer than 32 per cent of lawmakers. Women of colour, Indigenous women and working-class women make up a small fraction of that number.

The importance of having a diversity within our lawmakers can’t be overstated. The pandemic has shone a light on pre-existing gender and racial inequality and has increasingly widened the gap. Inequality has especially deepened for women and non-binary people facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.

Having women in the legislature has undoubtedly influenced supportive laws passed during the pandemic. There has even been some gains in the area of child care, sexual harassment laws and pay equity.

We’ve seen the vital importance of women’s leadership in all elected spaces, including unions, throughout this pandemic. Work needs to be done to bring down the barriers to women’s access to these positions and the challenges that drive them out.

Women who have stood for office or been elected continue to face gender-based harassment and violence. Indigenous and Black parliamentarians have spoken out about the racist and sexist treatment they’ve been subjected to and they, along with other women, have made the difficult decision to leave the legislature.

Persons Day can’t just be about achieving the right for women to be appointed or elected to public office. It must also be about the wider campaign for gender justice. And we can win this campaign only through collective action.

Unifor members’ activism at the bargaining table, at the ballot box and in the streets hasn’t been easy but fighting back always makes a difference.  We have stepped into a leadership role during the pandemic recognizing that women, particularly racialized women, have been disproportionately bearing the brunt. We’ve been pressing for workers’ rights, mobilizing to elect progressive governments, and standing firm for safety at work and at home. Our work to Build Back Better and its companion bargaining agenda includes an equity lens and lays a roadmap to a better world.

Persons Day may have started with the push for the right of white, upper class women to gain what white, upper class men had. It has since become a day to examine the structures that existed then and continue to exist. These structures must be reformed and dismantled if we are ever to achieve true equity for all genders and people of all classes. Collectively we will continue that fight.