Gabriella Jóźwiak - Freelance Journalist

"Nongovernmental organizations working in Nigeria have called for renewed focus on supporting women and girls who escape abduction, as the country marked the second anniversary of the Chibok school kidnappings last week. Two hundred and nineteen of the 276 girls abducted on April 14, 2014, from their secondary school in northeastern Nigeria by Muslim militant group Boko Haram are still missing. But aid organizations working in the country say concentrating on their rescue is not enough. Boko Haram has abducted  at least 2,000  women and girls in the country since 2012, according to  estimates  from charities  International Alert  and  Amnesty Internationa l. Those who return from abduction also need support. Boko Haram characteristically forces captive girls to marry its members. Many are raped and become pregnant as a result. Devex spoke to Kimairis Toogood, International Alert’s senior peace-building adviser and The Wel...

My article on children and young people living in a Liberian cemetery has made the long list for the 2016 One World Media Awards. The piece, published alongside photos taken by award-winning photographer Hannah Maule-ffinch , was published in the Independent Magazine. One World Media will announce the final three nominations for the Press category of the awards in late April.

My reporting of the Ebola virus outbreak in Liberia was recognised at the Amnesty International Media Awards last night, where I was handed the Gaby Rado Memorial Award. The articles published in the Sunday Times, the Observer and the Independent on Sunday sought to highlight the broader impact of the disease on already impoverished communities. The stories showed how people were dying not just from the virus itself, but from fear and as a result of the government and international community's inadequate response. They also highlighted the vital role local NGOs played in the response, particularly charity Street Child . My entry as presented at the awards ceremony by BBC world affairs correspondent Mike Thomson Part of my acceptance speech The Gaby Rado Memorial Award recognises the work of a journalist who has been covering human rights issues for less than five years. Click here for links to the winnin...

I have been shortlisted for the 2015  Gaby Rado Memorial Award by global NGO Amnesty International . This recognises the work of a journalist who has been covering  human rights  issues for less than five years. The nomination in particular follows articles I published on Ebola for the Sunday Times , the Observer and the Independent on Sunday . The other journalists on the shortlist are the Independent’s deputy news editor Rob Hastings and freelance investigative journalist Maeve McClenaghan . The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Barbican in central London on Thursday 26th November. Amnesty’s Media Awards recognise excellence in human rights reporting and acknowledge journalism’s significant contribution to the UK public’s awareness and understanding of human rights issues. Read more about the 2015 awards here .

"Anyone would guess it was a prison. Its four-metre-high walls are topped with coiled barbed wire and punctuated with watchtowers. Its tall metal gates are locked. Yet a glimpse through one door, left slightly ajar, reveals its inmates died years ago. The site in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, is an abandoned cemetery where no one has been buried for decades. The walls aren't there to confine the dead, but to keep out the living – people whom Liberian society has forgotten who inhabit its crumbling tombs. "There was a body there, but I took it out and threw it away," says Junior Toe. A veteran tomb dweller, as those occupying the cemetery are known, he has lost count of his years living among the dead. Standing on the worn edge of an open tomb, he peers into his second-hand bedroom. The empty space, about two-metres deep, is finished with stained green tiles crossed by vines. "When you look for a tomb, the body can't be too fresh," he advises....