Multimedia Series on the Labor of Indian Fisherwomen Wins Awards

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The Pulitzer Center-supported project Breaking the Nets has earned high acclaim for bringing to light the labor of Indian fisherwomen.

“At the heart of the fishing industry is the invisible labour of women,” starts the series by grantees Monica Jha, Shamsheer Yousaf, and Sriram Vittalamurthy, published by The Wire. The five-part multimedia series documents the discrimination against women in the fishing industry, their fight for recognition and rights, and how they have organized to protect fish markets. 

The project has won a New Media Writing Prize, the “Excellence in Online/Digital Journalism, Immersive Storytelling” award from the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), and the 2024 KP Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. 

It has also won the Innovative Storytelling award from One World Media, and two Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) awards.

“We’re overjoyed that the fisherwomen’s voices and resilience has found recognition on a global stage,” Jha told the Pulitzer Center.

The Asian College of Journalism called Breaking the Nets “visually rich and well narrated.” The series “highlights the grit of the women who have battled all odds to earn a livelihood and lead a life of dignity,” the college said.

The New Media Writing Prize highlights the innovative use of multimedia to share fisherwomen’s stories.

“The judges note this powerful piece of interactive storytelling sheds light on systemic oppression through the lived experience of Indian women,” said the award announcement. “The emotive effect of this narrative is heightened through meaningful use of multimodal elements—Full-screen imagery, moving images, voice, and writing, and a seamless navigation … This highly ambitious project addresses large-scale social implications linked to tales of personal struggle. Covering stories from six regions of India, the scope is vast and the depth of research impressive.”

The AAJA praised the series for a “tremendous response across social media.”

“Many viewers, in particular women, appreciated seeing these underreported stories on women in the media,” said the award announcement. “On Twitter, stories on women from Indigenous groups in particular resonated with a lot of social media users, and saw sharp comments highlighting their issues to policymakers and government officials.”

See the complete series here.