Mariam Ouédraogo, a 41-year-old journalist from Burkina Faso, is the first female African journalist to win the prestigious Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for a series of reports on the violent conflict in her home country.
As she recounts the stories of the lashings, rapes, and abductions of women and girls by armed groups, Ouédraogo relives the trauma of her experience firsthand.
The conflict, which began in 2015 and has killed thousands and displaced close to two million civilians.
It has seen the use of rape as a tool of terror and control.
Ouédraogo’s reports focus on the suffering inflicted on Burkina Faso’s women and girls, covering stories of internally displaced people raped and forced to flee their villages.
Ouédraogo’s achievement is even more remarkable, given that she works for a national state-run newspaper with a small circulation.
The New York Times owns this report. Read it here.
FEATURED IMAGE: Mariam Ouédraogo won the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for her series reporting on Burkina Faso’s devastating conflict against armed jihadist groups and the suffering the fighting has inflicted on the country’s women and girls. Clair MacDougall for The New York Times
By Godfrey Times
