Insults are Everyday Reality for Bosnia’s Women Journalists

In the last three years, meanwhile, the Association of BH Journalists recorded 50 threats and attacks on female journalists in the country. It may also be assumed the real number of attacks and threats is far higher, as many cases go unreported.

As a woman journalist myself, I have encountered some of these problems, from being undermined to being openly insulted. My answer to the first challenge was to work hard, and to the second - to persist on any given story.

As I am sure many of my female colleagues have also, I have often received questions about who "put in a word on my behalf" - suggesting that some powerful contact or relative has lobbied for my work to be taken seriously.

Many female journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina have had far worse experiences, from being targeted on the basis of their gender, just for doing their jobs properly, to being denied basic working rights when they are at their most vulnerable.

When Selma Ucanbarlic, who works with the Centre for Investigative Reporting, CIN, published a story about the controversial dealings between a public hospital and a private clinic, she was attacked in a dirty social media campaign by the doctor who owned the medical centre.

Dr Emir Talirevic published a series of online posts and comments in 2016, calling her an "indecent" woman and an uneducated and unprofessional journalist, and questioning her abilities and reputation. He claimed that CIN was financed by gifts and that its journalists and her colleagues prostitute themselves.

While Ucanbarlic did her job properly, giving Dr Talirevic enough space for his comments and reactions, he used low means to "defend" himself in an attempt to create a narrative that he was the victim. Luckily, Ucanbarlic works with...