After the collapse of communism in 1989, millions of former Soviet bloc residents migrated abroad, breathing life into one of the oldest criminal enterprises—the trafficking of humans into sexual slavery. Since then, thousands of Eastern European women have been sold into prostitution. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova investigates this rarely documented journey. + View project at www.priceofsex.org. […]
Accountability
Posted inAccountability
Iraq: Living in Hiding
Lawlessness and sectarian violence quickly engulfed Iraq after the fall of Saddam, leaving women vulnerable. Human rights groups say incidents of rape have increased, and by Iraqi tradition the victims are shunned and sometimes murdered by family members in “honor killings.” Correspondent Anna Badkhen and photojournalist Mimi Chakarova visit a secret women’s shelter in Baghdad […]
Posted inAccountability, Immigration
Army Extends Immigrant Recruiting
The lanky 19-year-old from South Korea has lived in the Southland since he was 9 years old. He is as comfortable speaking English as his native Korean. And he desperately wants to join the Army. Late last week, the teenager walked into a recruiting office in an Eagle Rock mall wearing a pendant shaped like […]
Posted inAccountability
The Disappearance of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
The Lloyd Investigative Fund’s first grant goes to Petra Bartosiewicz, in support of her investigation for Harper’s magazine of the disappearance of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who, in 2003, was reportedly abducted near her home in Karachi, along with her three American-born children. Siddiqui, a long-time resident of the Boston area, received her doctorate […]
Posted inNational Security
Observe and Deport
Salvador Rivera was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1979. At age 18, as he faced several arrest warrants, he adopted an alias and obtained a Mexican birth certificate. The ruse worked: When he was arrested by a Border Patrol agent in January 1998, Rivera assumed his false identity and was voluntarily deported to Mexico. Within […]
Posted inAccountability
Searching for Kosovo’s Missing
Ten years after the Kosovo War, Michael Montgomery returns to the Balkans for the BBC to investigate “the other side of the war”—Serbs allegedly kidnapped and killed by ethnic Albanians. In a series of video journals for CIR, Montgomery takes viewers behind the story. Part 1: The Mystery House | Sources pinpoint a house in […]
Posted inAccountability
Colombian Journalists Track Guerrilla War on Contravía
Interview by Mark Schapiro Produced by Carrie Ching, Joe Rubin, and Andres Cediel ABOUT THE SERIES Welcome to The Investigators, an ongoing web-video series highlighting investigative reporting—as it happens—by journalists around the world. The series features interviews with journalists, who share the stories behind their groundbreaking international investigations into human rights abuses, financial corruption, political […]
Posted inAccountability
New Migrant Class Flees Mexican Drug War
As a drug war rages throughout Mexico and along its northern border, an increasing number of Mexicans are crossing into the United States to flee the killings, extortion and kidnappings that have plagued places like Juárez and Tijuana. Unlike the traditional job-seeking migrants, whose numbers have dropped in part due to the slumping US economy […]
Posted inAccountability
Iranian Businessman Charged in Weapons Scheme
A Rolls-Royce helicopter engine, similar to those Khoshnevisrad allegedly attempted to smuggle into Iran. Photo © Rolls-Royce plc 2009 SOURCE DOCUMENTS: • Download the affidavit filed by a Department of Commerce special agent and the resulting criminal complaint. A Tehran businessman who allegedly helped run a major weapons-smuggling ring for Iran was charged yesterday with […]
Posted inAccountability
Baghdad | Los Angeles
Baghdad | Los Angeles, a four-month collaboration between the Annenberg School for Communication at USC and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, explores the impact of the Iraq war in Southern California. Stories include: a profile of the Junior ROTC program at Hollywood High School; the tale of an undocumented Mexican, in the U.S. […]