From left: Najibullah Quraishi and Jamie Doran
AWARD DATE: 2012
AWARD NAME: The David A. Andelman and Pamela Title Award 2012
AWARD RECIPIENT: Najibullah Quraishi and Jamie Doran
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: WGBH Frontline and Clover Films
AWARD HONORED WORK: Opium Brides
Najibullah Quraishi’s reporting in Opium Brides stood out for its exploration of a dangerous, hidden world to reveal a human tragedy: young Afghan girls traded by their opium poppy growing families to pay debts to international drug lords. The subject matter is intrinsically important, highlighting the plight of Afghan farming families caught between drug traffickers who finance their crops and government officials bent on poppy eradication. But what set the entry apart was the way it ventured into the remote Afghan countryside to show the plight of individual families and their children, as they weighed up the demands of the traffickers and then succumbed to them. Brave, beautifully shot and paced, this entry was sensitive in its handling of a tragic human dilemma and harrowing in its impact.
Watch “Opium Brides” >>
Citation for Excellence:
Tim Sandler, Chris Hansen, Kristen Powers, Allan Maraynes
NBC News – Dateline
The Hansen Files: Trial and Error