Qadri Inzamam

Since Prague's central mosque was shut down last December following over 500 complaints from residents, the city's Muslims have had great difficulty finding a new space for worship in the city centre.

Why would anyone stay in a job where abuse is rampant and women are coerced into hysterectomies? Because the cost of escaping India’s cane fields is often even higher.

Pension funds and big investors are pressuring Coca-Cola, Pepsico and others over brutal working conditions in India’s cane fields. Some of the sugar buyers are tiptoeing toward change.

Politicians run most of the mills in the state of Maharashtra. They deny or downplay evidence of coerced hysterectomies, debt bondage and child labor in the fields.

Over the past six months, the Islamic Foundation in the Czech Republic’s capital, Prague, has been rejected by property owners at least ten times, each time after disclosing their intention to establish a mosque. Their unsuccessful search for a space to set up a mosque continues.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have helped turn the Indian state of Maharashtra into a sugar-producing powerhouse. But a New York Times investigation has found that these brands finance a brutal system of labor that exploits young girls and leads to the unnecessary sterilization of working-age women.

People scurried as it began to drizzle on an April evening in Prague’s Old Town, faintly awash in the incandescent glow of street lamps. A group of nine people—mostly eager women and a few men—waited by a defunct fountain, wondering if their tour guide would show up. It was already half past seven. A few more minutes passed, but the wait continued.

As the homelessness crisis in the Czech Republic continues, some homeless people are working as tour guides. Sex worker Lada has become a successful guide at the age of 55. Thanks to the job, she is no longer without housing.

Prague's Matejska pout is the largest annual funfair in the Czech Republic.
First held in 1595, it is also the oldest spring fair in Europe and marks its 430th anniversary in 2025.

Earlier this year, our investigation with The New York Times into Maharashtra’s sugar cane farms revealed a brutal system of debt bondage that controls women’s lives from early adolescence — and has resulted in thousands getting coerced into unnecessary hysterectomies. Our latest collaboration reveals why nothing has been done about this open secret: The majority of mills are owned by political figures, meaning the very people who could protect workers are profiting from their exploitation.

It’s nearly two years since I first traveled to Beed in the western Indian state of Maharashtra to learn more about why rural women were having hysterectomies in such large numbers. The region is known for its sugar cane farms and every year, large numbers of migrant workers from Beed travel across the state to harvest sugar — a physically demanding job that they must do in intense heat and with very limited access to clean water and sanitation.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have helped turn the Indian state of Maharashtra into a sugar-producing powerhouse. But a New York Times investigation has found that these brands finance a brutal system of labor that exploits young girls and leads to the unnecessary sterilization of working-age women.

Scattered across the globe, the Rohingya are in danger of losing their language. One man is fighting to keep it alive

While these spaces help sex workers gauge their clients before agreeing to meet them, going digital comes with risks.

A new attendance system was supposed to bring transparency to a government work program in rural India. It’s actually forcing people to work for free.