Supported projects

PRAGUE - This investigation uncovers a secretive porn empire’s dominance, hidden ownership, lawsuits, financial evasions, industry threats, and struggles with new regulation.

YEREVAN – This investigation examines the role played by certain Italian agencies authorised by the Italian government and accredited in Armenia until 2022 in alleged cases of child trafficking from Armenia: Anpas, Arcobaleno Onlus and Famiglia Insieme Onlus.

ATHENS / DAMASCUS / FORLI – This investigation has uncovered the murky connections between the Greek airline Air Mediterranean and individuals and companies involved in drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and other illicit activities in Syria.

AMSTERDAM / BRUSSEL / STOCKHOLM - The European approach to legislation on sex work is a complex patchwork of contrasting policies, each of which claims to prioritise the welfare of workers, but often falls short in practice.

MANILA - After corona, the problem of online sexual abuse and exploitation has only intensified. At any time of the day, 750 000 people worldwide are searching for images of child abuse. As many as 1 in 5 children in the Philippines face it. Yet international interest in the problem is declining.

SANTIAGO DE CHILE – Over the last few years, stories have been published on the irregular adoptions that took place in Chile during the years of the Pinochet dictatorship. But the trafficking of children from Chile did not begin and end with the dictatorship. It still goes on today. This cross ...

BELGRADE - Cocaine production and trafficking has reached record levels, with organised crime groups from the Western Balkans playing a major role in the EU market, working with Dutch groups. The recent hacking of the encrypted messaging platform Sky ECC has revealed the inner workings of criminal ...

LIVNO - In Bosnia and Herzegovina, many quails are killed by Italian hunters, and environmentalists are concerned that wildlife crime is rapidly growing out of control. A team of investigative journalists travelled to Bosnia and Serbia and busted an illegal hunting operation.

ZURICH - Baby number 12 is a global investigation into an adoption scheme that began in Switzerland in the ‘50s, and the trauma that haunt the victims today. The investigation aims to expose the responsibilities of the Swiss authorities and will ask for their action.

SKOPJE - The Macedonian grayling is a unique butterfly species which resides exclusively on the outskirts of a small Macedonian town, with no other known locations worldwide. The specimen of this rare and endangered butterfly can be purchased at low prices across Europe — how did this become ...

DELHI - India’s garment industry, valued at around 100 billion USD, employs 51 million people formally and another 68 million informally. As a key producer for Western nations and the second-largest textile exporter globally, the industry relies heavily on women, who make up over 70% of the ...

TUNIS - Over the 2023, Tunisia has become the main crossing point for refugees and asylum seekers on their way to Europe.

MILAN/SOFIA/ARAD – Tens of thousands of tonnes of textile waste arrive in Romania and Bulgaria every year, mainly from Italy and Germany. Despite the fact the EU had acknowledged the extent of the textile waste smuggling across the continent, no strategy so far proved to be efficient in preventing ...

KARACHI - Top clothing brands in the EU are hesitant to fully eliminate child and bonded labour from their supply chain from Pakistan, one of the biggest producers of cotton and one of the largest textile exporters to the EU.

SYROS - In April 2022, Abdalla Jaloul was sentenced to 187 years in prison for human trafficking and homicide.

SARAJEVO - Dozens of migrants from Asia and Africa drown every year in the rivers between Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. 

MONDELLO - Every year millions of European tourists crowd Italy's diverse beaches, visiting ancient seaside towns and bathing in the Mediterranean Sea’s warm, azure waters. But while some enjoy themselves among the colourful parasols and picture-perfect scenery, others are fighting for survival.

PUNJABI - BELGRADE - India and Serbia have enjoyed visa-on-arrival policy between 2017 and 2023. Investigation revealed a nexus between Indian travel agents who would connect these migrants with donkers (human smugglers) in Serbia, who further helped them cross international borders via countries ...

MANILA / AMSTERDAM - There is an invisible workforce keeping homes in the Netherlands spotless. Filipino cleaners run about Dutch cities each day, their packs filled with dozens of jingling keys. They are part of a community of thousands of undocumented migrants who clean homes in the Netherlands ...

GITEGA / BELGRADO - The Burundi Balkan Route offered several thousand Burundians a way out of their homeland in crisis in 2022.

BRUSSELS - How Nigerian girls are forced into Belgian prostitution. In 2018, 21-year-old Eunice Osayande is murdered on the streets of Brussels. The Nigerian woman was smuggled into Belgium with the false promise of becoming a hairdresser here and having a better life than in Nigeria.

CONAKRY / BELGRADE - According to Europol, the smuggling of songbirds and other tropical birds to the European Union (EU) has skyrocketed in recent years, especially along the Balkans trafficking route.

DUBLIN - Recruited to Ireland with the promise of good wages, fishers from the Philippines - often in debt after paying illegal recruitment fees - travel across the world to provide better opportunities for themselves and their families. But a work permission scheme, introduced following exposure of ...

BRATISLAVA - A couple from Slovakia imported hundreds of frogs from Central America to the EU, completely legally. However, the woman was later apprehended in Germany, where police seized over 100 frogs from her. Some of them of the kind which was never in history imported to Europe legally. Turns ...

LATINA - How, through debt, a network of intermediaries linking India to the Pontine countryside keeps thousands of Indian workers under blackmail, exploited in one of the largest fruit and vegetable districts in Europe.

PUNJAB - For years, the focus has been on men from Punjab who get trafficked to Europe, which is also colloquially known as Kabootar Baazi. This investigation by Journalismfund's grantees reveal how Punjabi women are increasingly being trafficked by travel agents from India, but due to the social ...

ODEMIRA - Changing migration patterns mean that more Nepalis are now travelling to western Europe via dangerous, illegal routes in the hopes of obtaining residence in a European country like Portugal. 

DHAKA - Faced with poverty and lack of opportunities, young Bangladeshis often dream of a better life in Europe that will allow them to provide for their families. Dalaals or ‘travel agents’ encourage and capitalise upon these hopes. Among those that take the risky journey to Italy known as 'the ...

LUXEMBOURG - Migrants are victims of mistreatment and exploitation by their relatives and friends in the heart of Europe. This story shows how in Luxembourg some of the poorest migrants face injustice which needs to be exposed and addressed.

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 ...