Dilnaz Boga, an Indian photojournalist and reporter, has won the Agence France-Presse Kate Webb Prize for her courageous work in Indian-held Kashmir, the AFP Foundation announced Wednesday. Boga, 33, spent a year in Srinagar working for the respected news portal Kashmir Dispatch as well as a number of international publications and websites, the culmination of a decade covering the troubled region.
The Kate Webb Prize was launched in 2008 in honour of the legendary AFP correspondent in Asia who blazed a trail for women in international journalism. The prize recognises exceptional work produced by locally engaged Asian journalists operating in dangerous or difficult circumstances in the region.
Boga will receive a certificate and 3,000 euros ($4,200) in cash at a ceremony in Hong Kong. "Covering Kashmir is tough enough for any journalist," said Eric Wishart, AFP's regional director for the Asia-Pacific region. "As a woman, Dilnaz endured difficult, male-dominated conditions in an extremely hostile environment to report on the human side of the held Kashmir situation, particularly the impact on the youth," Wishart added.
Boga said monitoring the extent of the violence in all its forms is often difficult, especially when international human rights groups are barred from operating. "Our stories manage to shed some light on the reality of those who have no voice," said Boga, who was educated in India and Australia. Before working in occupied Srinagar, Mumbai-based Boga earned a master's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney with a dissertation on the psychological impact of human rights violations on children in held Kashmir.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.