Scroll’s Johanna Deeksha and Nolina Minj win 2023 Laadli Media Awards

Scroll’s Johanna Deeksha and Nolina Minj won 2023 Laadli Media Awards on Saturday. Deeksha won the award in the English language in the country’s southern region category and Minj in the western region.

The Laadli Media Awards was instituted in 2007 by Population First, a nonprofit supported by the United Nations Population Fund. The awards honour, recognise and celebrate the efforts of those in news media and advertising who highlight gender sensitivity.

Deeksha won the award for her story, written as part of Scroll’s Common Ground in-depth reporting project, on why sex workers in India dread going to hospital. She spoke to sex workers from across the country who recounted how they are ignored, overcharged and ill-treated, particularly by doctors and staff of government hospitals.

Most of the women Deeksha spoke to for the story said that they felt more comfortable approaching private healthcare providers or clinics where the doctors had been through some kind of sensitisation training.

Among the primary situations in which sex workers said they needed healthcare, but found it hard to access, was when they got pregnant. They struggled both in cases where they sought abortions, as well as when they wanted to carry their pregnancies to term, Deeksha found.

Minj won the award for her story, also part of the...

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