The testimony of five women revealed through the social network
“I am 41 years old, 20 in journalism, and only in the last few days, when the complaints against Pedro Brieger began to rain, I finally understood that I had experienced a similar situation of harassment with him,” he wrote on the X network, the journalist from The uncovering, Laura Carpineta on Tuesday afternoon. It was one of the latest accusations, after the words of Leticia Martínez, journalist from the Public TV and Futurerock, who acknowledged having been one of the first five women to tell of their harassment situations. The testimonies today are more than ten.
The topic arose from a series of tweets by journalist Alejandro Alfie but took on another dimension when more women began to tell their experiences of harassment by Brieger.
“Five girls are the tip of the iceberg of the number of women who were victims of PB, with cases dating back to the mid-90s. It makes me panic to think how fear, shame, manipulation, among other things, paralyzed us so much. time, but here we are,” Leticia Martínez tweeted.
Among these cases is that of the journalist Cecilia Guardati, -who agreed to give her name-, in 2008 during the coverage of a presidential tour in Africa. The former correspondent of the Télam news agency in Spain reported, “in Tunisia, we were notified by the Presidency that Cristina Kirchner was going to speak after dinner. Brieger told me that she couldn’t go and she asked me to give him the audio of her when she returned from that meeting. As a colleague, I had no problem. “She went to her room in her hotel, the door was ajar and from inside he was talking to her while she masturbated under the sheet.”
Agustina Kämpfer also acknowledged having been harassed by Brieger, as did two other journalists who shared radio programs with him and a worker at the University of Belgrano.
Another testimony was that of Marcela Perelman, Research Director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS): “The scandal of the day is true. It happened to me with him too. It is disgusting that reactionary men, several of them known harassers as well, try to take advantage of this,” she said. “It would be better for the journalist not to file a case against anyone. “There are many of us,” he said, alluding to what Alfie himself said and that when he contacted Brieger, he told him that he would sue him and the women for defamation.
After the accusations, C5N and Radio 10 dismissed Pedro Brieger, who was part of work teams in both media.
Why didn’t they report it before?
There were many opinions on social media X after the women’s public denunciation. Many comments, historically anti-feminist, began to question why the complaint was not filed earlier. The answer from a feminist perspective is simple because there is respect for the victims’ time. It is they who decide when and how to report the violence they experience or have experienced.
But the workplace, especially for women, does not always provide areas that contribute to reporting. Gisela Dohm is a member of the ELA team (Latin American Justice and Gender Team) and a specialist in harassment issues in the workplace. She explains to Argentinian time that the difficulty in reporting is crossed by several facets. “The first is that the company, as the organization that employs you, has a channel specifically enabled for this. Since 2021 in Argentina there has been new legislation, Convention 190, which obliges employer organizations to prevent, protect and assist against workplace violence and harassment.”
Convention 190, which is currently in force in 44 countries, was signed in 2019, ratified in 2020 and regulated in 2021 with the impetus of the now defunct Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity. The convention includes sexual violence. Dohm says: “All companies and all employer organizations must have a mechanism to prevent, protect and assist in the event that these situations occur.”
If these mechanisms do not exist, the possibility of reporting becomes difficult. “Above all, it is very difficult for women because many things come into play. The first thing that happens is that they don’t believe you, but other dimensions are also at play, such as your professional career being affected, or having some difficulty in your growth, training or promotion process. Or that it is the victim who bears the weight of the consequences, that she is removed, separated, or the victim is moved away from the harassing person.”
This, Dohm clarifies, does not mean that companies or workplaces should not be required to respond. “Unlike victims, companies are obliged to provide listening, care and safeguard mechanisms. But also to respond in terms of risks for other people.”
An attack against the plurality of voices
When it comes to female journalists, harassment has another aspect and is an attack on freedom of expression and plurality of voices.
“If women have a hostile place in their work spaces due to attacks, sexual harassment from colleagues or bosses, they become spaces where freedom of expression and the plurality of voices suffer. When we talk about harassment of journalists, we are also putting into play the possibility of these women’s voices being fully developed and not having to live with these harassment practices that undermine their own work,” analyzes Gisela Dohm.
In that sense, the way these complaints are addressed should also be careful. Regarding the Brieger case, he expressed that, despite the authorization of the women who gave their testimonies, they are not the proper channels for reporting.
“I don’t know if these are the appropriate mechanisms to work on these issues. In some way, the public complaint shows that there were no other channels to do so in a careful way, with respect to people, their voices, their rights, and so that they can be conducted in a more protected and respectful manner. I don’t know if these public complaint mechanisms are the best tools to conduct a careful process. It also shows that by not having mechanisms where there is confidentiality, where people’s privacy is protected, unusual means are used that are not prepared for this. The backlash is more damaging than what happens in spaces with more care, where information and the right of the person to be cared for are preserved,” she said.
The journey of the complaints and testimonies in this specific case demonstrates the strength of making these demands collectively and with a feminist perspective.
The press protocol
The Buenos Aires Press Union (Sipreba) has an action protocol for cases of sexual violence in both television and radio newsrooms and studios. “At SiPreBA we embrace the victims of gender violence and that is why we implement a Protocol for cases that occur in the union or in the workplace,” the union said last Sunday.
The protocol is one of the first tools developed collectively and promoted by the Union’s Women and Gender Secretariat. It applies to all press workers represented by Sipreba with the commitment to intervene in these situations in the event that they are not part of the union.
It consists of 10 points that first include addressing the cases, focusing on the protection of the victims. It offers free advice and support from the union’s Women’s Secretariat in the event that the complainant wants to file a lawsuit in the area of justice.
In that sense, the protocol also proposes protecting confidentiality in the event that the complainant chooses it to avoid revictimization.
The full text can be consulted at this link bit.ly/3zdMLGr
Among the achievements of the feminist movements, especially in 2015, is having learned to accompany complaints collectively, not to focus on the victims and to propose reparation in broad, plural and transversal terms.
