The Journalist Award for Commitment to Children's Rights

This year’s Peter Scholl - Latour Prize, conferred to a journalist for courageous and independent reporting on the suffering of people in crisis and conflict areas, was received by Sonja Ernst for her radio contribution about children conceived in war rapes. The programme (in German) can be heard here.

Jury member Charlotte Maihoff, moderator of the news program RTL aktuell commented on Sonja Ernst’s report “Children from war rapes” as being ‘a very special piece of radio. The topic is so difficult to bear that it is often hushed up: war rapes and the children that result from them. Especially it has become topical again in a cruel way due to the Ukraine war. Sonja Ernst shows that the problems, the questions, the identity crises of these children are similar – no matter when or where they were born, in post-war Germany, ex-Yugoslavia or Rwanda.”

The CHIBOW network is delighted to be associated with this work by Sonja Ernst, as Heide Glaesmer (director of training) and Sabine Lee (network co-ordinator) as well as a long-term collaborator and friend of the CHIBOW network, the President of the Bosnian Forgotten Children of War Association Ajna Jusic, contributed to the programme.

Congratulations to Sonja Ernst for this wonderful award and thank you for being such a vocal and sincere reporter of the challenges of children born of war worldwide.