Journalist Mac McClelland’s experience in Haiti, where she was covering the aftermath of the country’s devastating earthquake, included sexual threats from the man she had hired to drive her around. It wasn’t the U.S. reporter’s first experience with sexual harassment on the job, and definitely not the last (later she would enlist the aid of a rifle-wielding passerby when another man in her employ threatened her). But as result of her trip she produced an excellent and chilling long form magazine piece for Mother Jones about the country’s rape pandemic, where women as young as two are raped without reprisal.

Correspondents who have been raped, sexually assaulted or sexually harassed usually don’t report it to their bosses (or anyone else for that matter); they worry it might cost them their beat. And in the largely man’s world of war reporting, female reporters are reluctant to show any perceived signs of weakness. The result? While journalistic safety training abounds, most courses or handbooks don’t even attempt to tackle the still-taboo topic of sexual security. While no amount of training can truly prevent harm, it can help prevent victims of abuse from suffering in silence.

If you thought this was an issue only facing foreign correspondents in war zones — you’re wrong. Last June, Canadian journalist Amy Miller reported that she was repeatedly threatened with rape by police after she was arrested while covering the G20 summit in Toronto. “I was told I was going to be gang banged. I was told that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again by making sure I was going to be repeatedly raped while I was in jail,” she said.

In May, the International News Safety Institute published a paper called “Women Reporting War” (the first of its kind) and found that  “a high number of women war reporters have suffered physical attack or intimidation while covering conflicts.”

More than half of those who responded to the poll — it was sent to 150 women, only 30 responded — reported sexual harassment, and a significant number said they had experienced sexual abuse.

Several of the women called for self-defence to be made an intrinsic part of safety training. Requests were also made for female trainers, but all were adamant that they didn’t want to be treated differently than men.

Judith Matloff explored the issue in 2007 with a well-written but disturbing Columbia Review of Journalism article titled Unspoken.

“Women have risen to the top of war and foreign reportage. They run bureaus in dodgy places and do jobs that are just as dangerous as those that men do. But there is one area where they differ from the boys – sexual harassment and rape. Female reporters are targets in lawless places where guns are common and punishment rare. Yet the compulsion to be part of the macho club is so fierce that women often don’t tell their bosses. Groping hands and lewd come-ons are stoically accepted as part of the job, especially in places where western women are viewed as promiscuous. War zones in particular seem to invite unwanted advances, and sometimes the creeps can be the drivers, guards, and even the sources that one depends on to do the job. Often they are drunk. But female journalists tend to grit their teeth and keep on working, unless it gets worse.”

While secrecy makes actual numbers hard to come by, Matloff knows of “a dozen of these such assaults, including one suffered by a man. Eight of the cases involve forced intercourse, mostly in combat zones. The perpetrators included hotel employees, support staff, colleagues, and the very people who are paid to guarantee safety — policemen and security guards. None of the victims want to be named. For many women, going public can cause further distress. In the words of an American correspondent who awoke in her Baghdad compound to find her security guard’s head in her lap, “I don’t want it out there, for people to look at me and think, ‘Hmmm. This guy did that to her, yuck.’ I don’t want to be viewed in my worst vulnerability.”

Because of the public’s reluctance to discuss this prevalent issue, you’d be hard-pressed to find sections on sexual harassment and assault in the typical journalistic safety handbook or course.

“When one considers the level of detail over protections against other eventualities — get vaccinations, pack dummy wallets, etc. — the oversight is staggering. No one tells women that deodorant can work as well as mace when sprayed in the eyes, for example, or that you can obtain doorknob alarms, or that, in some cultures, you can ward off rapists by claiming to menstruate.

“For women seeking security tips, hostile-environment training is the way to go. Yet those short courses also rarely touch upon rape prevention. The BBC, a pioneer in trauma awareness, is the only major news organization that offers special safety instruction for women, taught by women.”