Afghan journalists look beyond the headlines, press conferences and official statements to shine a light on some of their country’s most under-reported stories in this series of in-depth reports from around Afghanistan.
Uncovering these stories was the task given to journalists participating in the Afghan Investigative Journalism Fund, a year-long project undertaken by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting to train and mentor local media in watchdog journalism.
The project trained nearly 100 reporters from around the country. But it went beyond simply offering instruction and provided an opportunity for journalists to put theory into practice and undertake their own investigations into topics that they felt significantly impacted their communities.
The resulting reports form the foundation of the Afghan Center for Investigative Journalism and will be added to as the ACIJ evolves into the country’s first independent watchdog journalism organization. The stories can be viewed by clicking these links.
IWPR investigation reveals children trapped in unending bonded labour to pay off loans. By Sayed Samiullah Sayidi - Nangarhar 23 May 12 “I was not born a slave,” Mirwali said. “I’ve been held hostage with two of my older brothers at this brick factory… ...
By Mohammad Hassan Hakimi Ghor Province – Hayatollah said that he is supposed to be teaching history and geography for grades 6-9 at the Kahrezak Secondary School, located 60 kilometers from the provincial capital of Cheghcheran. But when asked to ...
By Hamed Mehri Herat city – About 2,000 roadside vendors ply their trade on Herat streets everyday, selling everything from bananas to tools or clothing. The work is hard and most make barely enough money to pay expenses and ...
By Wali Mohammad Hadeed Herat city – In November last year, Sayed Faisal and his wife visited a friend who lived in Herat city. While sipping tea, Khesraw, Faisal’s two-year-old son, suddenly had a coughing fit. The child soon ...
By Humayoon Ghaznavi Ghazni province – Local strongmen have seized 150,000 acres of state-owned lands in Ghazni Province during the last eight years, local authorities say, and the government is worried that this land mafia are now poised to ...
By Gulab Shah Bawer Mazar-e-Sharif – Earlier this year at the Balkh public hospital, in northern Afghanistan’s Mazar-e-Sharif city, 24-year-old Yasin was at the side of his father, Mahmood, who had been admitted with a head injury. His fellow ...
By Aminulla Rahbar Jalalabad – Four years ago, 525 families were looking forward to receiving solar panels through a government aid program. But evidence obtained by Institute of War & Peace Reporting suggest that more than 75 percent of ...
By Khan Mohammad Daneshjo Kabul – The search began with a missing generator. The machine, which costs as much as $20,000 in Kabul, was bought with money donated by a foreign government to help pay for a massive international ...
By Noor Agha Noori Wakhan district, Badakhshan province – Counting sheep in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province may be difficult, but shooting them is no doubt easier when the weapon of choice is an AK-47. The famed Marco Polo sheep, first described ...
By Najeebullah Danish Aybak city, Samangan province - In June, Najibullah, a farmer from Larghan village, a collection of primitive, mud-walled compounds on the edges of Aybak city, brought an uncle and five cousins to the Samangan provincial hospital ...
