April 16, 2025Videos
Amid Sudan’s brutal civil war, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are using sexual violence to terrorize women and girls from non-Arab ethnic groups. These war crimes have sparked international outrage. Special correspondent Neha Wadekar and filmmaker Zoe Flood, with the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation, spoke with survivors and a woman determined to help them heal.
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April 15, 2025Videos
For two years now, Sudan has been wracked by a civil war between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Correspondent Neha Wadekar and filmmaker Zoe Flood, with the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation, report on the crisis on Chad’s eastern border, where hundreds of thousands of Sudanese civilians have fled violence and the risk of starvation.
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Since April 2023, Sudan’s army has been battling the Rapid Support Forces, which was once its own paramilitary fighting wing, for control of the country. The violence has killed up to 150,000 people by some estimates, injured tens of thousands more, and displaced more than 14 million Sudanese both within and beyond the country. And in the midst of the fighting, perpetrators from both sides of the conflict have been engaged in systemic acts of sexual violence that the head of a United Nations fact-finding mission recently described as “staggering” in scale, likely amounting to a war crime and a crime against humanity.
However, the impediments to investigating rape during conflict are significant, and they can obstruct successful prosecutions in both local and international courts. For most survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan, justice remains elusive.
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November 20, 2024Radio
How can we hold institutions accountable when they fail the most vulnerable?
In this episode, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah speaks with investigative journalist Neha Wadekar about her shocking exposé for The Intercept, which uncovered a cover-up of child sexual abuse at Bridge International Academies in Kenya. The story sheds light on systemic failures, from administrators silencing survivors to the lack of justice or compensation for victims. This conversation examines the urgent need for transparency and survivor-centered justice.
Together, they ask: How can powerful institutions be held accountable when their funding enables harm?
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Rio Tinto is facing a likely lawsuit in an English court brought by the UK-based law firm Leigh Day on behalf of people living in villages near a mine in Madagascar.
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October 31, 2024Videos
Abortion is a closely watched issue in this year’s election, and not just in the U.S. As president, Trump cut funding for international groups that offer and counsel on abortion services. With support from The Pulitzer Center, special correspondent Neha Wadekar reports from Kenya where advocates are watching for who wins. A warning, this story contains accounts of sexual and gender-based violence.
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Right-wing American Christian groups that oppose sexual and reproductive rights are significantly increasing their spending in Africa, according to a new data analysis published ahead of a U.S. election, which could prove pivotal to abortion access both inside and outside the country. Research by the nonprofit Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found that 17 groups increased their Africa spending by 50% between 2019 and 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. The researchers say the data represents only a handful of Christian Right groups but indicates that they are making an increasingly concerted effort to influence abortion policy internationally as well as domestically.
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For the second time, the IFC is bucking recommendations to offer money as reparations to people hurt at a chain of schools it invested in, Bridge International Academies. Thanks in part to The Intercept’s reporting, the World Bank Board delayed a vote on an IFC action plan that did not include compensation.
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Millions of Sudanese are fleeing a warzone—and exposing the world’s bankrupt response.
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