Burkinabe journalist Mariam Ouédraogo, of Editions Sidwaya, is the winner of the 2023 ICFJ Knight International Journalism Prize, for her writings highlighting the trauma of women abused by terrorists who attack her country for eight years.

For her coverage of the suffering of women abused by terrorists, Mariam Ouédraogo was crowned the winner of the Knight International Journalism Award 2023, presented by the International Center of Journalists (ICFJ) “to honor exceptional journalism that has an impact”, wrote l ‘ICFJ on its website.

The Center also praised the fearlessness of the journalist from the daily Sidwaya who took enormous risks in her will to show the pain of these women beaten and raped by terrorists.

Some are then rejected by those around them because they have become pregnant by their criminal executioners.

In October 2022, Mariam was the first African journalist to win the Bayeux-Calvados-Normandie Prize, for war correspondents, in the Written Press category.

It was her article “Axe Dablo-Kaya: the road to hell for internally displaced women” that caught the jury’s attention.

The same month, she won the Marie-Soleil FRÈRE Prize for the best Journalist in Burkina Faso, thanks to her article “Victims of terrorist rape: heavy pregnancies and babies to bear”.

Over the course of her reporting, the journalist developed post-traumatic stress disorder (a transfer of the suffering of the victims) which forced her to observe a sabbatical year.

Since graduating from the Institute of Information and Communication Sciences and Techniques (ISTIC) in 2012, Mariam Ouédraogo has won numerous national and international awards.

Long before her admission to school, she worked at the Burkina Information Agency (AIB) as an intern and then as a collaborator.

Source: Burkina Information Agency