Chapter 7: Spotlight on Women in Investigative Journalism

The stories below were mostly published in 2023 and 202, and written by women journalists, or reporters who cover women’s issues.

• Are Russian Troops Using Sexual Violence as a Weapon? Here’s What We Know (Washington Post)

• Eavesdropping in Maine Jails (The Maine Monitor)
• How Kashmir’s Half-widows are Denied Their Basic Property Rights (Scroll.in)
• Kenya’s Hidden Epidemic. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Kenya, cases of gender-based violence exploded (BBC Africa Eye)
• Investigating the Killing of Elisabeth Blanche Olofio (A Safer World For The Truth)
• The Internet Is Failing Moms-to-Be. Disinformation in Pregnancy Apps (Wired)
• Bus of Hope. The story of the Yemeni women who follow their dreams and persevere despite societal structures that make it hard for women to work (Yemen Policy Center)
• When They Warn of Rare Disorders, These Prenatal Tests Are Usually Wrong (New York Times)
• Guantánamo Notebook. I Spent 20 Years Covering America’s Secretive Detention Regime. Torture Was Always the Subtext (by Margot Williams for The Intercept)
• ‘I am a Leader of My House.’ An Illustrated Story of Women’s Daily Lives in the Rohingya Refugee Camps (The New Humanitarian)
• Another Venezuelan Plight: Sex Trafficking in Guyana [Spanish version here] (Connectas)
• The Lost Girls of Covid (Bloomberg)
• ‘Those Dollars and Cents Add Up’: Full-time Trans Workers Face a Wage Gap, Poll Finds (The 19th)
• The Women’s Collective Fighting Legally Against Extrajudicial Executions of Their Sons (in Spanish, openDemocracy)
• Why Minorities are Abandoning India’s Trailblazing Queer Forums (Rest of World)
• Violence Against Women in Latin America (in Spanish, a transnational investigation coordinated by Connectas)
• Female Bodybuilders Describe Widespread Sexual Exploitation (Washington Post)
• Chinese Families Navigate a Maze of Laws and COVID Rules to Have Babies in the US (NPR)
• Five Years of #metoo in Infographics: A Hashtag, a Global Voice with Twists and Turns (in French, Le Monde)
• The Map of Cesarean Sections in Spain: The Hospitals that Abuse Surgical Deliveries (in Spanish, Eldiario.es)
• Punches, Kicks, Psychological Terror: Several Women Make Allegations Against Well-Known Footballers (in German, SZ)
• Alleged Sex Abuse by Aid Workers Unchecked for Years in UN-run South Sudan Camp (The New Humanitarian/Al Jazeera)
• What Video Footage Reveals About the Protests in Iran (NYTimes)
• Japan’s Female Bosses Mapping a Course for Other Women (BBC)
• Many English Maternity Units Not Meeting Safety Standards (BBC)
• The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion (Reveal)
• DRC: Rampant Violence Decimates Women’s Health Care (Global Press Journal)
• The Effect of the Pro-Gun Agenda on the Lives of Brazilian Women (in Portuguese, Marie Claire)
• “Our Main Demand Is Not to Get Killed”: Mexican Women Find Safety in Location-Tracking Facebook Groups (Rest of the World)
• Femicides in Tibú, Colombia: Cocaine, Gunmen, and a Never-Ending War (Insight Crime)
• In China, Millions of Women Never Learned to Read. Can TikTok Help? (Sixth Tone)
• In a Gender World Cup, Latin American Countries will not Reach the Rinal, Why? (La Data Cuenta)
• The Enduring Sexism of India’s Tech Industry (Rest of the World)
• The Censorship Machine Erasing China’s Feminist Movement (The New Yorker)
• Google Search Skews Abortion Results (Bloomberg)
• MGNREGA: The Last and Often the Only Resort for Indian Women (IndiaSpend)
• Being LGBTQI+ in Wartime (several outlets)
• Socialite, Widow, Jeweller, Spy: How a GRU Agent Charmed Her Way Into NATO Circles in Italy (Bellingcat)
• The Afghan Women Left Behind (The New Yorker)
• Hijabs not Welcome: Undercover Filming in Egypt Reveals Discrimination against Hijabi Women (BBC Arabic).
• When ‘Bandi’ Is Both a Game and Life: The Children of India’s Women Prisoners (Pulitzer Center/The Wire)
• Pregnant Girls in Panama (Con Las Manos en la Data/TVN/CONNECTAS in Spanish).
• Top Ghanaian Doctors Use Misinformation to Train Nurses in ‘Conversion Therapy’ (openDemocracy)
• The Women Who Wish they Weren’t Mothers: ‘An Unwanted Pregnancy Lasts a Lifetime’ (The Guardian)
• Seven Years of Sex Abuse: How Mormon Officials Let it Happen (AP)
• Bukele’s Government Raging Against Women Journalists in El Salvador (El Faro, in Spanish)
• Romania, “Breeding Ground” of Sexual Slaves for Europe (Le Courrier des Balkans)
• This Is the Data Facebook Gave Police to Prosecute a Teenager for Abortion (Motherboard)
• The Disinformation Campaign Behind a Top Pregnancy Website (Reveal)
• An Undercover Investigation into the Taliban’s Crackdown on Women in Afghanistan (Frontline)
• A Year under the Taliban: How Afghan Women are Fighting for Lost Rights (The Fuller Project)
• Uganda: When Accusations of Witchcraft Result in Vigilante Killings (Global Press Journal)
• These Period Tracker Apps Say They Put Privacy First. Here’s What We Found (Consumer Reports)
• Facebook and Anti-Abortion Clinics Are Collecting Highly Sensitive Info on Would-Be Patients (Reveal)
• Sexual Violence: New Charges Target Minister (in French, Mediapart)
• Femicides: More Aggressors Kill their Partners with a Firearm than by Other Lethal Means (in Spanish, CPI)
• Murder, Rape, and Abuse in Asia’s Factories: The True Price of Fast Fashion (The Guardian)
• Banished. Menstrual Huts are Illegal but Persist in Western Nepal (Global Press)
• PPDA, the Fall of an Untouchable (Complément d’enquête, in French)
• The Baby Broker Project: Inside the World’s Leading Low-Cost Surrogacy Agency (Finance Uncovered)

Feminist Newsrooms to Follow

• 50.50 is openDemocracy’s newsroom featuring feminist investigative journalism and frontline reporting. Topics include #TrackingtheBacklash against women’s and LGBTIQ rights – and challenging exclusion in the media.
• Women Rule by Politico. Behind the scenes with the women reshaping politics, policy, and power.
• The Gender & Identity section of The Washington Post moved the Lily, its publication on women to its main website. The Gender & Identity section will cover stories “from the latest in the abortion debate to dispatches on LGBTQ culture and reports about the pandemic’s impact on women.”