Supported projects

EL SALVADOR - "When I woke up in the hospital, there were police officers around me. They said that I had killed my child." Maria Teresa De Rivera is 34 when she gets a miscarriage on the toilet. Due to strict abortion laws in her country, she is sentenced to 40 years in prison. She not only loses a child, but also her freedom. Under pressure from, among others, the Catholic Church, El Salvador has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE/GEORGIA - This article aims to map the thriving surrogacy business between Israel and Georgia, with particular attention to the role of women in this increasingly global and more lucrative baby business.

BELGIUM - The share of the pharmaceutical sector in the Belgian economy is large. According to the organization pharma.be in 2017, the sector employed 35,711 people and our country exported for a total value of 40.5 billion euros of medicines and vaccines worldwide, which is about 10% of Belgian exports. 

You are what you eat, as the saying goes. But you're also what you smear. Through our skin, all kinds of things - creams, shampoos, make-up and other substances - partly penetrate our body. Yet not many people know what's in their daily dose of cosmetics.

BELGIUM/INDIA - Kapelle-op-den-Bos is the birthplace of filmmaker Daniel Lambo. Life was good there, Daniel's father was a laborer and trade unionist in the local Eternit factory. The company was once one of the largest asbestos-producing multinationals in the world. Today we know the consequences of asbestos production and for many it's a problem of the past. However, the asbestos issue proves to be still actual when the activities of Eternit abroad are being scrutinized.

BELGIUM - Fourteen years ago, Karen * gave birth to a daughter. A girl like other girls, but with a Y-chromosome, that's how Karen describes it herself. This Y-chromosome caused her daughter to develop testicles during pregnancy. Her body was insensitive to the testosterone that the testicles produce, so she developed as a girl. Coincidentally, Karen knew that something like that sometimes happens. Shortly before the delivery, she saw a documentary about children born with a variation in sex characteristics.

BELGIUM - In a time of growing polarization, geo-political instability and a reduced confidence in institutions, there are people who want real change. Bottom-up seems to be a major shift in the political landscape. Citizens solve problems without waiting for decision-making. This can be the start of a new power structure and will thoroughly change our policy.

During his training to become a general practitioner, Egmont Ruelens met several bus and tram drivers with stress complaints and physical problems. They flirt with a burn-out. 

Research by Apache shows how 'chronic fatigue specialist' Kenny De Meirleir sells his patients, through numerous small companies, often controversially expensive tests and medication that he prescribes himself.

Sex before marriage is punishable by lashes and incarceration. Adultery even with the death penalty. And that is why promiscuous sexual behavior in Iran is the norm. Two journalists, with the support of the Pascal Decroos Fund, made a captivating undercover report from the underbelly of Tehran.