The International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization committed to strengthening the role of women in the news media worldwide, recently announced the winners of its 2013 Courage in Journalism and Lifetime Achievement Awards.
The three awardees of the IWMF Courage in Journalism awards are all women who have put their lives at risk in order to report the news.
Najiba Ayubi is the managing director for The Killid Group in Afghanistan. Ayubi, 45, has spent more than a decade working under anonymous threats and attacks from government entities for her reporting on politics and women’s rights. She leads a team of reporters working in print, broadcast and online media and has refused calls for censorship.
Nour Kelze is a photojournalist for Reuters in Syria. Kelze, 25, occupies the front lines of the conflict in her country, working to document the human cost of the Syrian revolution. She has been shot at countless times, hospitalized twice for wounds sustained while photographing, and targeted in pro-Assad propaganda.
Bopha Phorn, 28, is a reporter for The Cambodia Daily in Cambodia. Phorn’s reporting on environmental exploitation nearly got her killed in April 2012, when her car came under heavy fire during a reporting trip in the Cambodian jungle. Her coverage of crime, land rights abuses and human rights issues have led to ongoing threats.
The recipient of IWMF’s Lifetime Achievement award is Edna Machirori, the first black female newspaper editor in Zimbabwe. As a woman journalist in post-colonial Zimbabwe, Machirori rose through the ranks of several newspapers, including The Chronicle and The Financial Gazette, in spite of a deeply patriarchal culture. Machirori continues to write about development, corruption and social issues for The Daily News, among other publications.
The Courage in Journalism Awards and Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented at ceremonies in New York on October 23rd and in Los Angeles on October 29th.
