Supported projects

WARSAW/AMSTERDAM/ANTWERP - Europe’s growing labour shortages in sectors like agriculture, logistics, transport, and hospitality are increasingly being filled by a new and highly vulnerable group – migrant workers from Central Asia. Many travel via Poland and end up, through opaque and exploitative channels, in vulnerable situations in the Netherlands and Belgium. 

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.

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.

ANTWERP / BRUSSELS / GHENT - As of 9 June 2021, the rules for sex work are normalising. After months of vacancy, activity in the zones of tolerance for window prostitution is getting back on track. In the past, sex workers and bar owners have been much investigated, but the property owners are a blind spot.

JOHANNESBURG - Close to two thirds of women in poor areas in Africa resort to selling sex to be able to feed themselves and their families. That is the result of a random interviewing exercise conducted in seven African countries in areas where the average income is on or below the poverty line of US$ 1,90 a day.

BRUSSELS - Vulnerable Bulgarian women are coming to Belgium and the Netherlands to live with elderly people who prefer to stay at home rather than go to a nursing home. They will care for these elderly people during the last years or months of their lives. This research is a case study of the practices of Seniorcare24, a major provider of these services in the Low Countries, and the fate of the caregivers seconded by this company from Bulgaria.

SAN SALVADOR - Strikingly absent in the American political debate: the issue of the Central American refugee crisis. Journalist Arthur Debruyne traveled along the migration route between Mexico and the United States.

CAPE TOWN - The world behind a glass of South-African wine. Emma Lesuis went back to the winery where she made the documentary "Vir 'n glasie wyn" (For a glass of wine) and saw that little had changed. That's why she went looking for solutions and discovered the world of Fairtrade. 

MERERANI - In the mines near Mererani in the north of Tanzania, miners search feverishly for tanzanite. Everyone hopes one day to find a beautiful large specimen of the unique gemstone and to become rich in one fell swoop. In recent years the government has taken extra measures to keep as much of the tanzanite yield as possible in their own country.

NOUAKCHOTT - Officially, slavery does no longer exists in Mauritania, a barren desert country in West Africa. However, according to Anti-Slavery International, at least 4% of the Mauritanians are still owned by a master. They are born as slaves and have never known freedom. Not even in their minds.