Winners

Xiao-Mi Tan’s article, published in the South China Morning Post, exposes the Chinese hospitals profiting from induced abortions. Tan reveals that many Chinese hospitals are cashing in on the desperation of terminally ill patients, offering unproven and fraudulent treatments based on stem cells and tissues harvested from aborted foetuses.

The exposé has generated intense discussion in China’s blogosphere and has prompted the Hong Kong authorities to begin work on regulating stem cell treatments. With the public increasingly sceptical towards such treatments in the wake of this piece, China is now being forced to consider both the implications of its often lax regulatory system and its approach to human rights in general.

In this exposé, featured in Tehelka, Neha Dixit uncovers the plight of exploited children from poverty-stricken parts of northern India. Lured by the promise of education and a better life, parents send their children to Islamic seminaries, only for them to be subsequently used as cheap labour and otherwise abused. In the aftermath of the story, 500 children were rescued.

Muneeza Naqvi’s article for the Associated Press highlights the plight of untold numbers of unwanted girls in India, neglected and abandoned by a society which prizes sons above all. Naqvi contributes to overturning entrenched, traditional attitudes in India and emphasises the importance of a balanced, inclusive and representative society.