Kenya’s television reporter, Rose Wangui has won the global prestigious 2019 Knight International Journalism award announced by International Centre for Journalists, (ICFJ).
Wangui, a feature reporter at NTV has been recognized after her stories made an outstanding impact on society.
The former journalism student at Cardiff University in Wales has compassionately tackled topics relating on sexual bondage of young girls in remote villages, of young Kenyan women who went to work in the Persian Gulf and wound up dead, and of squalid school conditions where children don’t have a desk, a pencil or a chair.
Her stories have led to major improvements in the conditions she brings to light.
NATION JOURNALIST Rose Wangui wins prestigious Knight International Journalism Award for 2019 for unique TV stories that led to major changes; to be awarded in Washington on Nov 7 pic.twitter.com/UsOBKgWm4x
— NationBreakingNews (@NationBreaking) May 23, 2019
Among her major contributing stories include one dubbed ‘Slavery in the Gulf” produced in 2018, focusing on the tens of thousands of Kenyan women who travel to the Persian Gulf states to work mainly as domestics servants.
Breadwinners for their families, the women often faced violence, exploitation and abuse. Wangui told the heart-wrenching story of four families whose daughters died in mysterious circumstances in Saudi Arabia.
.@RoseWangui of #Kenya has tackled topics such as sexual bondage of young girls and Kenyan women who went to work in the Persian Gulf and wound up dead. Her stories have led to major improvements in the conditions she brings to light. Learn more: https://t.co/2o4a0CHq9T @NTVKenya pic.twitter.com/Hb3rcOlpWq
— ICFJ (@ICFJ) May 22, 2019
In 2013, Wangui produced a powerful documentary titled “Beads of Bondage” that exposed a practice called “beading” in remote villages of the Samburu tribe.
Under this practice, grown men adorn girls as young as 10 with necklaces of colourful beads that allow them to claim the girls as sexual partners for years without marriage.
In 2013, @Rosiewangui’s #BeadsOfBondage exposed a practice called “beading” in Samburu. Under this practice, men adorn girls as young as 10 with necklaces that allow them to claim the girls as sexual partners for years without marriage.
VIDEO: https://t.co/Mt25QefTwP
— NTV Kenya (@ntvkenya) May 23, 2019
If pregnancy results the girls are subjected to a crude and painful form of abortion performed by women in their village.
The story revealed the helplessness of the girls and their mothers under this system, in which the arrangements were struck by male relatives.
After the Samburu beading story was aired, funds were raised to build a shelter for young victims.
After another feature, “Schools of Misery,” exposed grim school conditions for children in a southern Kenya county, General Motors donated more than 1,200 lap desks to six underprivileged schools in Kilifi County.
In 2011, Kenya’s parliament banned female genital mutilation after a series of stories by Wangui raised public awareness about its harmful effects.
Wangui also studied journalism at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication and later earned a master’s in international journalism at Cardiff University in Wales.
She will be honoured at ICFJ’s Awards Dinner in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 7, 2019.
Here is a video of her feature on Slavery in the Gulf:
Congratulations Rose!