Friends since high school, Sreya Banerjee and Rudraneil Sengupta's paths have crossed many times over the years. But it was only when Sengupta published his book about India’s wrestlers, that they decided to collaborate on a television programme addressing gender inequalities in sport.
Wrestling in India is traditionally a male domain, with deep-rooted societal and religious barriers excluding women. Banerjee and Sengupta’s documentary A Battle for Rights and Recognition: India’s female fighters, dives into the highs and lows of women who have inspired a new generation of girls and are changing and challenging attitudes towards women in society.
Even today, it is difficult for women to get into wrestling in India. In many places, people say women should not even watch wrestling, let alone take part in it. Women wrestlers face violence and social ostracization.
“We wanted to understand how these women became elite-level athletes and Olympic medallists against all odds,” Sengupta said. “Some of these women come from parts of India where women have much lower levels of education, rights, and privileges than in the rest of the country. But they still managed to come out. So we wanted to find out how they did it, what they had to face and whose support they needed to get to this point.”
One of the wrestlers in the documentary is Antim. In Hindi, her name means ‘final’, because her parents did not want another female child. Antim is now one of India’s best hopes for a medal at the Paris Olympics.
As the documentary started filming, sexual harassment cases committed by the chief of the Indian wrestling federation came to light. This enabled Banerjee and Sengupta to cover the street protests and the first #MeToo movement in Indian sport.
“We need more media to invest in long-form formats that go beyond the headlines, especially for international and social issues,” Banerjee says. “It is important to tell stories where there is some hope and something positive coming out of it. Such stories can have a larger impact on society.”
How Female Miners are Transforming the DRC
Mélanie Gouby devoted much of her 15-year career as a journalist to covering natural resource management, geopolitics, and conflict—topics intricately intertwined with each other in East and Central Africa. Her journey led her to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where she lived for three years and developed a deep connection with the region.
Her nominated story, Rise of the ‘Mother Boss’: How female miners are taking control in DRC, is part of a broader project looking at the impact of US and European due-diligence legislation on the purchase of conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Her research taught her that the conflict's roots extend far beyond mineral resources. In her quest for solutions, she met Jocelyn Kelly, a director at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and Annie Sinanduku Mwange, a mining leader in Kailo, a town in the east of the country. Sinanduku Mwange’s organisation trains mining communities to address issues such as sexual violence. Through this training, a concept known as the "Mother Boss" emerged to foster cooperation among the miners and to improve hygiene standards and community well-being.
Rise of the Mother Boss, published in The Guardian, garnered positive feedback, but Gouby admits that the broader media landscape often overlooks women and sexual harassment.
“The challenge for journalists is to present these stories in ways that capture attention and drive impact, cutting through the noise of an oversaturated information environment,” she says. “Sustaining attention is crucial to translate it into tangible support for initiatives like Annie's.”
Gouby continues to report on the mineral supply chain, as it touches on global challenges and the broader failures of capitalism in fostering development in resource-rich regions. She aims to advocate for a more equitable future.
- Read about the economic benefits of gender equality
Ending menstrual taboos and poverty in West Papua, Indonesia
Conversations about sexual and reproductive health, in particular menstruation, are still frowned upon in West Papua, a province of Indonesia in the island of New Guinea. Women menstruating for the first time frequently experience stress due to bleeding and confusion over changes in their bodies.
To write Breaking Taboos: Papuan women embrace collective care to end period poverty, Narriswari met with a group of women’s associations, Yayasan Biyung, Perempuan GIDI, Kewita, and Elsham Papua, who launched an initiative called "The Women Support Women to Use Reusable Pads in Papua" to challenge and change societal norms in Java and Papua, despite political unrest and military conflicts. The association, which runs workshops on menstrual health rights, is supported by a human-rights organisation, as well as a church group.
Narriswari was particularly inspired by the active participation of women, who came voluntarily to share their stories and fears during the workshops, breaking away from the passive roles they are often assigned in institutional or governmental events.
The article received positive reactions from the collaborative movement’s members and the featured women. They were pleasantly surprised to see such a topic covered in popular media, breaking the taboo surrounding menstruation.
The story also inspired action. During a photo exhibition about ending period poverty, a student council in Jakarta organised a fundraising and donated the proceeds.
Despite the success, Narriswari notes that “such stories rarely find space in mainstream Indonesian media. Only media outlets committed to gender issues and sexual and reproductive health rights, like Project Multatuli, would dedicate the necessary attention to such topics. Shedding light on underrepresented stories is both inspiring and crucial for driving social change”.
Narriswari is currently working on another long-term project focused on sexual and gender-based violence in Papua.
