TVI wins the international AMADE award 2008

The report Tráfico infantile (Child Trafficking) made by Portugal's top-ranking free-to-air TV channel, TVI, has won the UNESCO-sponsored AMADE Human Rights award.

The prize is given to TV programmes which promote and foster those values championed by both UNESCO and AMADE (Association Mondiale dês Amis de L'Enfance), organisations which struggle against human rights violations, particularly those affecting children.

The prize-winning report, made by journalist Alexandra Borges, cameraman Júlio Barulho and editor Miguel Freitas, chronicles child slavery in the Lake Volta region of Ghana, where children are sold by their own parents, are abused and forced to work 14 hours a day. The jury praised the work as an important insight into a blatant and brutal case of abuse of children's human rights, without depicting nor promoting violence.

The award was presented at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, on June 12.