FEATURES Archives - Gethin Chamberlain

How can Lidl sell jeans for £5.99? Easy … pay people 23p an hour to make them 0

COMMENT, FEATURES
March 16, 2016

Gethin Chamberlain, for The Observer, 12 March 2016. Abracadabra! “Jean genie Lidl magics up £5.99 denims,” shouted the headline in a newspaper last weekend as it extolled the brilliance of the cut-price supermarket chain in once again undercutting its rivals. The German retailer, it explained, was continuing its assault on the traditional supermarket giants by targeting the

Last days of the tiger?0

MAGAZINES, FEATURES
February 21, 2011

Gethin Chamberlain for the South China Morning Post , 21 February 2011 WHEN he found the bull the tiger had killed, Mangya Moghiya set to work quickly. The wily old poacher knew the tiger would be back soon, and he wished to stack the odds in his favour. He began digging a series of holes and

Baptism of fire in the streets of Az Zubayr 0

FEATURES, IRAQ, MIDDLE EAST, WORLD
March 9, 2004

Gethin Chamberlain, for The Scotsman, 9 March 2004 “SARGE! Sarge!” The tugging on Sgt Euan McGilp’s arm was insistent. “Sarge! Sarge!” McGilp, ducking to avoid the bullets zipping overhead and attempting to keep his head below the level of his Warrior, ignored the hand grasping the fabric of his sleeve. “Sarge! Sarge!” Scott Henderson’s voice

The five-year race to save India’s vanishing tigers 0

FEATURES
March 7, 2010

With some conservationists claiming only 800 tigers still live in the wild, radical steps are needed if the species isn’t to disappear from India within five years by Gethin Chamberlain in Ranthambhore, India, for The Observer, 7 March 2010 The poachers perch on the rough platforms they have built in the trees about 15 feet

The sisters who took on the IRA and won 0

FEATURES
March 12, 2005

Gethin Chamberlain in Belfast for The Scotsman, 12 March 2005 THE men’s toilet in Magennis’s bar in central Belfast is not a large room. There is a small sink to the right of the door on the way in, a single stall to the rear of the room containing a WC, and a stainless steel trough

The human safari: the tribe that became a tourist attraction.0

WORLD, FEATURES
January 7, 2012

Jarawa people at risk from disease, predatory sex and exploitation as tourist convoys crowd the road through their jungle Gethin Chamberlain, for The Observer, 7 January 2012 “Dance,” the policeman instructed. The girls in front of him, naked from the waist up, obeyed. A tourist’s camera panned round to another young woman, also naked and

Orangutans fight for survival as thirst for palm oil devastates rainforests 0

ASIA, FEATURES, INVESTIGATIONS, WORLD
December 13, 2013

Palm oil plantations are destroying the Sumatran apes’ habitat, leaving just 200 of the animals struggling for existence Gethin Chamberlain for The Observer, 15 December 2013 Even in the first light of dawn in the Tripa swamp forest of Sumatra it is clear that something is terribly wrong. Where there should be lush foliage stretching away

Love is a battlefield: fighting back against honour killings.0

FEATURES
October 29, 2010

Gethin Chamberlain for The National, 29 October 2010 Aarti is stumbling across the fields, tears streaming down her face. Every now and again, she turns to look back over her shoulder, terrified that she is being followed. The man had shown her a gun, threatened her. She knew if they caught her that her life

Burning Issue 0

INDIA, FEATURES
June 27, 2010

Despite years of robust economic growth, famine, insurgency and greed have pushed millions of people in India to the brink of starvation, especially in Jharkhand where famished children are ‘cured’ by branding Gethin Chamberlain in Mirgitand, India, for the South China Morning Post, 27 June 2010 The poker is glowing red hot, flames from a

Iraq and ruin 0

FEATURES
March 18, 2006

Gethin Chamberlain, for The Scotsman, 18 March 2006 IT IS 9 APRIL, 2003. Muhannad Hussam is at home in Baghdad, watching television as the 20ft statue of Saddam in Ferdoos Square is hauled down by ordinary Iraqis. About 3,000 miles away in Aberdeen, Walter and Diane Douglas are also watching TV, hoping that this event signals the

Rebuilding an Iraqi force for law and order amid the chaos 0

IRAQ, FEATURES
September 10, 2004

Gethin Chamberlain, in Baghdad, for The Scotsman, 10 September 2004 THE blast of the twin explosions sends shock waves rolling across the dusty patch of land on the edge of Baghdad. Smoke obscures the armed men who have just jumped from two land cruisers and rushed up to the building to set the charges against

His name was Ahmed Hameed. A wrong turn in Baghdad cost him his life.0

FEATURES
September 17, 2004

Gethin Chamberlain, in Baghdad, for The Scotsman, 17 September 2004. HIS name was Ahmed Hameed and he was 36 years old. He had taken the wrong turning up to the checkpoint on the July 14 Bridge which spans the Tigris on the south-eastern edge of what used to be known in Baghdad as the Green

A nation adrift 0

FEATURES
September 19, 2010

The National, 19 September 2010 The floods that continue to submerge swathes of Pakistan have marooned hundreds of thousands of people on small islands of high ground. Gethin Chamberlain accompanies a rescue mission in Sindh province. THERE is a small boy, standing up to his waist in the flood water, staring at the boats that have pulled

Family’s tragic tale is a reality for millions as South Sudan is gripped by famine and civil war 0

AFRICA, FEATURES, South Sudan, WORLD
June 24, 2017

The Sunday People travels to the heart of the stricken country with British charity Plan International UK and meets Chagai and her family who, like many others, face starvation Gethin Chamberlain, for The Sunday People, 24 June 2017 Baby Nyandiar’s eyes are full of hope but it is clear, even at first glance, that she

No food, no money: conflict and chaos as South Sudan grapples with famine 0

WORLD, FEATURES
June 15, 2017

The rains are now falling, but on a country where people cannot work their fields because of fighting and where food prices are escalating beyond their reach Gethin Chamberlain for The Guardian, 15 July 2017 The tape measure wound around the arm of two-year old Apiu tells its own story. Under the traffic light system

Tea’s maids: the tea pickers sold into slavery 0

INVESTIGATIONS, FEATURES
March 2, 2014

GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN for The Observer Magazine Sunday 2 March 2014 A car, speeding through the crowded streets of Delhi. Inside, a phone is ringing. The voice on the line is that of a ghost, a girl who vanished into thin air three years ago. Somila was 16 when the traffickers lured her from the poverty of

Death on five ton tiptoes 0

FEATURES
April 20, 2012

Gethin Chamberlain, in North Bengal, India, for The National, Apr 20, 2012 The moment the elephant’s trunk wrapped itself around Fulmani Urao’s waist, she must have known it was all over. She did not even try to struggle. There was no point. It was about 1.30am when the huge, bad-tempered bull elephant smashed its way into

Five years on we’re still slumdogs who dream of being millionaires 0

FEATURES
April 20, 2014

Gethin Chamberlain in Mumbai, for The Sun on Sunday, 20 April 2014 THEY are the slum kids who were going to set Hollywood alight – the stars of Oscars sensation Slumdog Millionaire, plucked from the gutter to become overnight stars. As the film became a global hit, Rubina Ali and Azhar Ismail were convinced a life

Why climate change is creating a new generation of child brides 0

INVESTIGATIONS, FEATURES
November 28, 2017

As global warming exacerbates drought and floods, farmers’ incomes plunge and girls as young as 13 are given away to stave off poverty Gethin Chamberlain for The Observer, 26 November 2017 It was the flood that ensured that Ntonya’s first year as a teenager would also be the first year of her married life. Up

Building rights 0

INDIA, FEATURES
August 31, 2009

Gethin Chamberlain, in Kolkata, for The National, 31 August 2009 THE pregnancy came all too easily. Monica was 13, and the man in question was her overseer at the brick kiln where she worked about 40km north of the booming Indian mega-city of Kolkata. More than twice her age and married with two children of his

Dance me to the end of time: the lost generation at an AIDS crossroad 0

AFRICA, FEATURES, WORLD
December 1, 2003

Gethin Chamberlain, in Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia, for The Scotsman, 1 December 2003 CAROL Singwoma is weaving her way through the crowd, the eyes of the men on her dirty white knitted turtle-neck top and the little skirt covering her thin legs. Her skin is a deep black, her eyes big and open, her features attractive,

Post-election Iraq is calm, but will it last? Wait and see…0

IRAQ, FEATURES
February 5, 2005

By Gethin Chamberlain in Basra for The Scotsman, 5 February 2005 MY NAME? My name is Hanif Masoor, he says. He is smartly dressed, his dark blue jacket bearing the word Security picked out in yellow thread in English and Arabic. It is pitch black in the countryside on the southern edge of Basra, the

The deadly African gold rush fuelled by people smugglers’ promises 1

AFRICA, DARFUR, FEATURES, WORLD
January 17, 2018

Sudanese refugees in northern Chad are risking their lives to mine the precious ore in a desperate bid to secure a new life in Europe by Gethin Chamberlain in Farchana, 17 January 2018 Refugees from the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur, who are living in camps in neighbouring Chad, are being drawn into an African gold rush in

South Sudan’s battle for cattle is forcing schoolgirls to become teenage brides 0

WORLD, FEATURES
June 8, 2017

Conflict and desperate hunger are driving families to marry off their daughters to secure precious cows, despite the girls having to forfeit their education Gethin Chamberlain for The Guardian, 8 June 2017 Down a red dirt road on the outskirts of Rumbek, a sprawling town at the heart of the world’s youngest country, a small

One family’s anguish amid India’s child abduction epidemic 0

WORLD, FEATURES
July 5, 2011

Gethin Chamberlain for The National, 5 July 2011 It happens all of a sudden. One moment Anil Lakhotia is talking, the next his face is buried in his hands and his shoulders are shaking. Life goes on around him in a small cafe down a side street in the city across the river from Kolkata:

“Every one of these children is a ticking Ebola time bomb”0

WORLD, FEATURES
November 12, 2014

Brutal truth of epidemic in Liberian slum where footballer George Weah grew up as number of orphans ‘hits 12,000’ Gethin Chamberlain for MailOnline, 12 November 2014 Three-year-old Emmanuel Thompson appears first, peering through the doorway of the house in the Clara Town slum. Then tiny Mercy McGill trots out and soon there are 10 children

Myanmar’s new era dogged by ghosts of the old regime 0

WORLD, FEATURES
April 18, 2016

Aung San Suu Kyi’s election win saw the former political prisoner put in charge of Myanmar’s first civilian government since 1962 Gethin Chamberlain, for The Observer, 17 April 2016 “I want to be a soldier, to fight,” says 11-year-old Khin Soe Win, glancing round at the other children sitting in the gleaming new classroom. Another

‘We want to work in Hollywood- but God still hasn’t fulfilled our dreams’0

MAGAZINES, FEATURES
September 21, 2009

Gethin Chamberlain in Bombay for Grazia, 21 September 2009 IT is raining, the water dripping from roofs of tin and plastic into the pale grey ooze of the drain running down the narrow lane between the shanties that make up Bombay’s Garib Nagar slum. Rubina Ali, Slumdog Millionaire starlet and precocious 10-year-old, is skipping from

The Red Brigade: the women of India fight back 0

MAGAZINES, FEATURES
April 6, 2013

Gethin Chamberlain, in Lucknow, India, for The National, 6 April 2013 THE young women stride out along the dusty street that cuts through the Madiyav slum. Their bright red uniforms glow in the late afternoon sun and there is no mistaking their air of confidence. Since the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student

Six-year-old girl says other children wouldn’t play with her after she lost her leg – but now she’s been given hope 0

Video, FEATURES
June 11, 2016

Gethin Chamberlain, in Gaziantep, Turkey, for the Sunday Mirror, 11 June 2016 Four-year-old Shahd lay covered in dust when her mother found her. Her right leg was gone, taken off by the blast of a barrel bomb. Close by, her brother lay dead, his head smashed. A moment earlier they had been just another family

Investigative journalist | Photographer | Foreign correspondent

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