AWARDS for best news and feature reporting in the print media were given yesterday to reporter Ador Vincent S. Mayol of Cebu Daily News in a ceremony that commended journalists in Cebu who “foster responsible and conflict-sensitive reporting on human trafficking.”
Mayol won first place in separate categories of the Justice Award 2013 given by the International Justice Mission (IJM) and Peace and Conflict Journalism Network (Pecojon).
Other awardees in newspapers, TV and radio outfits were also recognized.
CDN correspondent Jose Santino S. Bunachita won second place in the feature reporting category for his feature “A bar girl’s journey: Human trafficking doesn’t just produce victims” which ran in CDN’s Nov. 1 and 2, 2013 issues.
He interviewed a former 15-year-old runaway from Rizal province who was rescued by police from her work in a Cebu city bar.
“The media are partners in raising awareness about human trafficking,” said Cebu City Councilor Lea Japson in her opening remarks at the award ceremony at the La Fortuna Conference Room n the Sto. Niño Basilica complex.
Japson is co-chairperson of the Cebu City Inter-agency Council against Trafficking.
The awards followed a motorcade from the Capitol to City Hall to mark International Anti-Trafficking day on Dec. 12.
Mayol, who regularly covers the courts as CDN’s justice beat reporter, closely followed raids, arrests and rescues of women and young victims of child abuse and sexual exploitation.
His winning entry for the IJM contest’s feature category was a four-part series “Children need time to heal”, which revisited young cyberporn victims of one family in Cordova town.
The children’s parents were arrested in June 2011 for operating a cyberporn den at home using the minors to perform sexual poses in front a web camera.
The series explored how the eldest daughter, now 14 years old, was adjusting with her siblings in a child care facility, and how cyberpornography remained a sticky problem in Cebu with home-based access to the Internet and the lure of earning “easy money” through online pornography, despite a series of raids that followed. The real names and location of the children remained confidential in the series.
Mayol won the first IJM Justice Award in 2011 for best reporting when the contest started. Feature news was added as a new category this year.
Sunshine Radio was also given a special award for a Public Service Announcement. Winners received a trophy or a plaque.
Contest organizers said they plan to expand the competition to a national scale.
IJM is a US-based human rights organization that focuses on rescuing victims of slavery and sexual exploitation especially in developing countries. Pecojon is an international network of journalists who promote quality reporting of conflict, crisis, war and other situations of violence.
The bi-annual awards were hosted with Cebu Alliance of Mass Communications Students (CAMS). /with a report by Bjorn Abraham Tabandera