WOMEN IN WAR ZONES
2023 was the deadliest year in a decade for journalists working in conflict zones, with killings almost doubling compared to the past three years.
What is causing the increasing risks, and how is it changing the coverage of conflicts? Do female journalists face specific security concerns in hostile environments?
Considering the high number of journalists killed in the Gaza strip and the reporting restriction on that particular war, there couldn't be a more apt time for this discussion.
We'll be joined by Christina Lamb, Senior Foreign Correspondent for the Sunday Times, who has written extensively about the impact of sexual violence against women in war zones; Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor at Sky News and by Hind Hassan, international correspondent for VICE News. The discussion will be moderated by the journalist and broadcaster Barbara Serra and introduced by WiJ chair Rachel Corp.
Barbara Serra is an award-winning journalist, TV presenter, documentary-maker and author. She joined Sky News as a presenter in October 2023.
From 2006 to 2022 she anchored Al Jazeera English’s flagship NewsHour programme from the channel’s European headquarters in London, and reported extensively from Europe and the Middle East.
In 2020 Barbara co-produced, wrote and presented the documentary ‘Fascism in the Family’, which won both the ‘Current Affairs’ and ‘History’ categories at the New York Festival’s Film and Television awards.
Barbara writes a Substack Newsletter called ‘News with a Foreign Accent’, in which she explores the challenges of being second-language English and the impact that English as the global language has on the international media’s perception of world affairs.
Hind Hassan is a multi-Emmy Award winning international correspondent for VICE News, covering conflicts, humanitarian crises, and the most significant developing stories worldwide.
Since joining VICE News, Hassan has reported on wars and uprisings across the globe. Notably, she embedded with the Taliban in Afghanistan just months before the group's takeover of Kabul. She was on the ground in Jerusalem and Gaza, ahead of the military offensive on the Strip in 2021 and her team became the first journalists to independently confirm the use of cluster munitions against civilians in Azerbaijan during the battle over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Most recently, Hassan investigated the deteriorating security situation in the West Bank and covered Russia's war on Ukraine from the frontlines. She also filmed at the epicentre of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and has investigated an attempted prison break by ISIS in northern Syria. In November 2022, Hassan reported live from inside an armed bank raid while covering the economic crisis in Lebanon.
Hassan is a recipient of five News and Documentary Emmys as well as an Edward R. Murrow, Overseas Press Club of America and a Gracie award. She was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy for her work on the VICE on SHOWTIME series.
Before joining VICE News, Hassan worked at Sky News and Al Jazeera.
Christina Lamb OBE is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times as well as a bestselling author.
She has reported from most of the world’s hotspots from Afghanistan to Ukraine after an unexpected wedding invitation led her to Karachi in 1987 when she was just 21. She won numerous awards including six times being named Foreign Correspondent of the Year; as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize - the Prix Bayeux, and was recently given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Editors and Outstanding Impact Award by Amnesty International for her work on ISIS camps in Syria.
She has always particularly focused on what happens to women in war and collected accounts of sexual violence in conflict from all over the world for her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields; described by leading historian Antony Beevor as ‘the most powerful book’ he had ever read and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, the Bailie Gifford and the Kapuscinski award.
She has authored ten books including co-writing the global bestseller I Am Malala with Malala Yousafzai. She is a Global Envoy for UN Education Cannot Wait, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Honorary Fellow of University College Oxford, on the International Board of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and an Associate of the Imperial War Museum.