Daan Bauwens is a Belgium-based investigative journalist.

As a writing freelancer he has contributed for Vice, De Morgen, De Standaard, Knack, MO* and the international press agency Inter Press Service.

As a correspondent Daan has worked in Israel, Turkey, Morocco and Japan. In 2019, he directed his first documentary on psyche and witchcraft in Uganda.

Daan is a former visiting fellow at Columbia University and was granted a Fulbright Award for narrative journalism and research on intercultural dialogue in New York City in 2015-2016.

Basic information

Name
Daan Bauwens
Country
Belgium
City
Ghent

Supported projects

Hezbollah in Africa: Forgotten link in cocaine trafficking to Antwerp and Rotterdam

  • Organised crime
  • Trafficking

YAMOUSSOUKRO - The money that European nightlife spends for its favorite drug finances Hezbollah's wars on the side of Iran. An insider from the Lebanese community in Ivory Coast, one of the new cocaine hubs in West Africa, speaks and paints a chilling picture that spans half the globe, from the slums of Abidjan to Beirut, via the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Money Trail newspaper supplement

  • Corruption
  • Finance
  • Tax evasion

AMSTERDAM, BRUSSELS - In February 2021 a Dutch and a Belgian newspaper included a 16 page supplement about the Money Trail project.

The booklet featured four full Money Trail stories, plus a 'Stories behind the Stories' section, which revealed how the journalists went about to do their research and get their stories published.

Highway 10. How West-Africa pays for Europe's cocaine addiction

  • Corruption
  • Organised crime
  • Trafficking

ABIDJAN - In this story, investigative journalists Daan Bauwens and Nicholas Ibekwe focus on Highway 10, the transatlantic route that for centuries brought millions of captured African slaves to South-America via the tenth parallel.

Bewitched

  • Culture
  • Religion

UGANDA - In “Bewitched”, Daan Bauwens, Rien Bauwens and Yann Verbeke head to Uganda. A team of young Ugandan psychologists visits fishing villages on the shores of Lake Victoria. They are going to tell that there is such a thing as mental health and that it it can be helpful to talk about it. Because too often people with problems go to a witch.

Maputo's Material Girls

MAPUTO - In poverty-stricken Mozambique, young women are obliged to sell their bodies to wealthier or white men. A general wisdom with cliché status. But is such a simple analysis correct? What does international research say and what do the women themselves think about their sexual practices and social status? 

Europe in Africa: The Price of Partnerships

  • Economy
  • Politics

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was hailed as the pact that will eventually liberalise trade between the European Union and the Economic Community of West African States.