Magdalena Rojo
Bringing disruptive view
I am a freelance journalist, originally from Slovakia but I have lived in various places in Asia and in Mexico.
I cover human rights and global issues directly from the field, mostly in developing countries. Chances are you would meet me in remote areas of Ethiopia talking over coffee to women who were migrants in Saudi Arabia, or drinking tea with Tibetan monks who fled to India.
I am a big fan of slow journalism and anthropology; I am always excited to spend days or weeks with people I write about in order to understand them and their environment and to gain their trust.
I have a deep interest in telling under-covered stories; I go to the places where other journalists do not go and search to challenge the general media narrative by asking questions to those who are rarely represented, such as vulnerable groups in societies, minorities, including women.
I am a co-founder of the long-term, global project Women Who Stay. Together with my husband, photographer Noel Rojo, we have been collecting stories of women left behind after their male counterparts migrate since 2017.
I am also a journalist fellow of the Spiritual Exemplars Project of University of Southern California.
I have been published in the international media, such as News Deeply, Deutsche Welle, Freunde von Freunden, Southeas Asia Globeand national media in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and the U.S..
I was nominated for the Slovak Press Award with her reportage about Cuba in 2013.
Covering global issues
Communality: A response to deforestation
INTERACTIVE STORY: Many communities in the region of Sierra Juárez benefit from sustainable management of their forests or from virgin forests that they decided not to touch. We visited five mountainous villages and towns to explore the system of communality that allowed this change to happen.
The State of Being
A holder of various international awards for social and environmental activism, Tuenjai Deetes has dedicated her life to eliminating statelessness in Thailand, fighting for the citizenship rights of the country’s remote northern hill tribes
The indigenous women fighting for change in Southern Rajasthan
The empowered indigenous women in Southern Rajasthan fight for change for the greater good of their families and the local community. We met three women who stay in their villages while their husbands migrate, speaking to them about what migration means for them and their families and how they fight for their rights.
Masue Katayama: Changing nursing care industry in Japan with kindness
Inspired by her Catholic faith, the ‘social entrepreneur’ is not only one of Japan’s few female CEOs but one of the most innovative providers of elderly care in the world.
In Oaxaca, food is keeping indigenous cultures alive
With every bite, Oaxacan cuisine transports you into Mexico’s indigenous communities and a few thousand years into the past.
Editor’s Picks at FairPlanet
Commentaries on current issues in Latin America and Central Europe.
The women left to face climate change and overfishing alone
Senegalese coastal villages are affected by climate change and overfishing. While many men leave to seek employment abroad, women often stay behind and try to adapt to life between rising sea levels and desertification.
For Ethiopian Women, Work Abroad Is Opportunity and Risk of a Lifetime
Amid nascent efforts to introduce labor protections for migrant domestic workers in the Gulf, women who returned to Ethiopia describe why working in the Middle East entails both great dangers and opportunities and how the experience changed their lives in complex ways.
Impact Series: Tuenjai Deetes
VIDEO: Standing up for tribal communities and making sure that they have a voice and rights – that’s what all governments should be doing and what Tuenjai Deetes is fighting for in Thailand.
Escaping inevitability in Mexico
VIDEO:More than a quarter of girls in Mexico are married by the time they are 18 – many pressured by their families. Julia Reyes Luis told her parents she wouldn’t marry – instead, she wanted to study music
Impact series: Carmen Santiago
„I believe that a great threat for the economic interests of companies, national and foreign, is that people become aware of their rights and demand respect for the land and territory.“ Carmen Santiago, director of Flor y Canto A.C. in Oaxaca, Mexico speaks about what it’s like to defend both indigenous rights and the human right to water.
Women Who Stay
Global, long-term, slow journalism project. Together with my husband Noel Rojo, we give voice to women who stay in their countries of origin while their family members migrate. We bring a complex view on migration as women who stay also form an integral part of the migration process.
We have been collecting stories of women on four different continents to find what connects us all.