Winner in the local journalist
category
Anas
Aremeyaw Anas
Biography
Anas Aremeyaw Anas, an investigative reporter with an independent
Ghanaian newspaper, was responsible for exposing two major
trafficking rings in Accra during 2008. Working undercover
for eight months, he revealed one ring's methods of transportation
and the identities of immigration officials who were accepting
bribes in return for overlooking fake visas and passports.
Anas made recordings of his interactions, allowing him to
produce evidence that could be used to prosecute the traffickers
who were sending girls to Europe for prostitution. As a
result of his undercover investigation, and his collaboration
with law enforcement officials, NGOs and other journalists,
17 Nigerian trafficking victims were rescued. Following
this success, Anas posed as a janitor in a brothel where
he collected evidence of a second ring, trafficking children
for prostitution. His efforts guided police in planning
and executing a raid to rescue minors prostituted at the
brothel.
Anas is currently Ghana’s journalist of the year and has
a number of international awards to his credit including
the Hero Award in Human Trafficking Presented by the US
Department of State, Washington, 2008.
Story Background and Context
Human For Sale "Dons"
Exposed
This cross-border investigative story unmasked a complex
web of human trafficking in West African where young girls
and in some cases children are sold into prostitution in
Europe and America. The eight-month long investigative scoop
finally led to the smashing of a trafficking syndicate in
a sting operation led by this journalist. Seventeen girls
who were about to be sold were flown back to their country
to be reunited with their families. The investigation also
caught on camera Ghanaian immigration security officials
engaged in the sale of the girls, taking bribes of between
1000 to 1500 US dollars before allowing the traffickers
to send them to Europe though Ghana’s international airport.
It was discovered in the investigation that Ghana had become
the new headquarters of an African trafficking syndicate.
When the story broke, the inspector-general of police called
for the establishment of an anti-human trafficking unit
within the Ghanaian police service. The story, originally
published in the Crusading Guide, ended up being followed
up by national newspapers, like the Daily Graphic and the
Mirror, due to the sensitive nature of the issues raised.
It must be noted that every single aspect of this story
was captured by simple hidden camera by the reporter who
went undercover disguising himself as one of the traffickers.
Winning Stories
|
Winner in the freelance category
Nicholas
Schmidle
Biography
Nicholas Schmidle is a fellow at the New America Foundation
in Washington, DC, He writes about culture, religion and
politics in Asia, and he has reported from Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Central Asia and Iran. His work has been published
in The New York Times Magazine, Slate, The New Republic,
The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, Mother
Jones and many others. Nicholas lived in Pakistan from February
2006 through January 2008, supported by a fellowship from
the Institute of Current World Affairs. He speaks Persian
and Urdu. Nicholas is currently writing a book about his
experience in Pakistan, To Live or To Perish Forever, to
be published by Henry Holt next year.
Story Background and Context
Waiting for the Worst
Democracy is Not a Postcard
Next-Gen Taliban
In 2006 and 2007, I spent 23 months living in Pakistan
and working as a freelance journalist. The three pieces
I am submitting for consideration for the 2008 Kurt Schork
award reflect not only the diversity of subjects I covered
during my time there, but also the extreme risks I took
to give important, yet underreported, stories their justice
in a long-form, feature venue. The first submission, Waiting
for the Worst, was based on several weeks of reporting in
Baluchistan, a province in Pakistan hit by tribal insurgency.
Baluchistan covers nearly half of Pakistan’s territory,
but the rebellion remains more or less unknown to the outside
world.
The second submission, Democracy is Not a Postcard, featured
reporting from a one-month reporting trip to Afghanistan
in August of 2007. I went to Afghanistan with a question
- and more specifically, a strip of territory - in mind:
with all the focus on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, why
weren’t people also reporting on the “other border”, the
one shared with Iran? Iran exerted profound influence on
western Afghanistan, both positive and negative. I divided
my time there between hanging out with anti-American clerics,
Afghan border patrol battalions, and businessmen at Herat’s
chamber of commerce, all in order to better understand the
dynamics and breadth of Iranian influence.
The third submission, Next-Gen Taliban, was the culmination
of nearly two years of reporting about the Pakistani Taliban.
To research this piece, I spent months running around the
badlands along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and even
entering a Taliban-run camp. The story created enough of
an impact in Pakistan that the government deported me and
my wife two days after it was published, on January 6. Within
48 hours, my wife and I were forced to pack all our belongings
into suitcases, and hurry to the airport before the police
arrested us - or worse.
Winning Stories
http://www.nicholasschmidle.com/ |
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