 |
Kate Holt | |
|---|---|
 Holt in 2012 | |
| Born | 1972 Zimbabwe |
| Alma mater | University of St Andrews |
| Occupation | Photojournalist |
| Awards | St Andrews, University - Exceptional Services Award |
| Website | kateholt |
Katherine Emily Holt (born 1972) is a British photojournalist, [1] who works primarily across Africa and the Middle East to gather humanitarian and development stories for NGOs and private companies, as well as the UK and global media. [2] She is also the director of communications agency, Arete. [3]
Holt was born in Zimbabwe in 1972 to British and South African parents. She grew up in Newfoundland and was educated in the UK at St Anne's, Windermere, from the age of eleven. Before going to university, she spent a year working in the Negru Voda Orphanage in Romania with HIV positive and disabled children. She returned there each summer during her years as a student. She completed her studies with a History Masters from St Andrew's University, Scotland, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Photojournalism from The London School of Printing, London.
Holt began her career with the BBC, working on Breakfast News and BBC News 24. Her first field experiences were in Kosovo, documenting the effects of the conflict on the civilian population. From there she went on to write her first investigative report which uncovered the trafficking of young girls from Eastern Europe into Bosnia and on to the UK. [4] This work was published as a cover feature in The Sunday Times Magazine' [5] ' and in The Observer . [4] It was the first time the issue of trafficking of women from Eastern Europe for sexual purposes was exposed. [6]
In 1999, Holt moved to Nairobi, Kenya, to cover news events throughout East and West Africa. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks in the US, Holt travelled to Pakistan and documented the influx of refugees over the border form Afghanistan as US and British troops closed in on the Taliban. In 2003, Holt traveled into Iraq with the first medical convoy to offer support to both Basra and Nazariyah as the coalition troops toppled Saddam Hussein.
In 2009, Holt relocated to Kabul, Afghanistan and spent three years covering the ongoing conflict there for a variety of British newspapers including the Daily Mail , The Guardian and the Financial Times .
In February 2012, Holt launched Arete, a media and communications agency specialising in humanitarian storytelling, media strategy and training, and which produces content for NGOs, charities and corporations in order to tell "stories that make a difference".
In 2013, Holt was the first journalist to expose rape as a weapon of war being used by Somali soldiers against women living in refugee camps throughout Mogadishu. [7] The story was published by The Guardian and subsequently numerous human rights groups have become engaged in the issue. [8] A year later, in 2014, Holt was the first journalist to expose the sexual abuse of women in South Sudan following the return to war between South Sudanese Government soldiers and opposition forces. [9] Holt covered the siege of the Westgate shopping Centre in Nairobi after it was attacked by Terrorists in 2013 and produced a series of photographs and stories for media outlets including the BBC. [10]
Now based in the UK, Holt regularly travels to document the experiences of refugees and the effects of war and poverty on women and children in conflicts in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. She photographs for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) including UNICEF, Care International, Jhpiego, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Médecins Sans Frontières and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Holt is a regular contributor to The BBC , The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday . [11] Her work has also been published in The Independent , The Times , The Observer , Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and Financial Times . [11]
In 2004 and 2005, Holt uncovered a story of sexual exploitation by United Nations Peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a series of articles for The Independent . [12] The story led to Kofi Annan announcing a 'Zero Tolerance' policy on the issue. [13]
Holt went on to publish an article concerning an apparent cover-up by the UN in New York of sexual harassment by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Ruud Lubbers. [14] Her article concerned an OIOS report that stated Lubbers had sexually harassed members of his staff. The report, which had later been reviewed following challenges to its verdict, was found to be deficient in reasoning as there was no corroboratory evidence from the other witnesses to the alleged harassment. For this reason, the UN decided not to publish the report. Ruud Lubbers resigned from his post after Holt's article was published due to the negative publicity, although he maintained that he was innocent of any allegations. Kofi Annan, whilst accepting his resignation, also stated that the findings that the allegations had no substance, were still valid.
Holt is a trustee of RE:ACT disaster response and the Royal Humane Society. [15]
In February 2012, Holt launched Arete – a media and communications agency that specialises in humanitarian storytelling, media strategy, content production and training for NGOs, charities and corporations. She is director of the company and regularly undertakes assignments for Arete's clients.
In 1996, while at St Andrews, the University awarded Holt a prize for exceptional services to a community for her work in Romanian orphanages. [16]
Holt has been nominated twice for the Amnesty Award for Humanitarian Reporting. Once in 2005 for her series of articles entitled when peacemakers become predators [17] and again in 2010 for a photographic series on Elderly people in Zimbabwe. [18]
She was highly commended by Amnesty International for her coverage of the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa in 2011. [19]
In 2003, Holt traveled to Iraq and photographed the impact of the UK and US invasion on the civilian population in Basra and Nazariah. The work produced was exhibited in London and Angers in France. [20] The exhibition, entitled 'Victory' was supported by the playwright Harold Pinter and Tariq Ali, both of whom supported the anti-war movement. The photographs were used by Amnesty International for their campaign to end the use of cluster bombs and illegal weapons by the Coalition Forces in Iraq.
Between 2010 and 2011, Holt was embedded with AMISOM troops from Uganda and Burundi on the frontline of Mogadishu. As well as producing a body of work on behalf of AMISOM she trained six Ugandan and Burundian soldiers in photography. The results of this training and her own work were exhibited in the Nairobi National Museum, Kenya in October 2011 in an exhibition entitled Brothers in Arms. [21] The exhibition subsequently traveled to the National Museum in Uganda and the UN Exhibition Centre in Burundi and now resides on the AMISOM base in Mogadishu International Airport. [22]
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations related organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.
The Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), previously known as the National Resistance Army, is the armed forces of Uganda. From 2007 to 2011, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the UPDF had a total strength of 40,000–45,000, consisting of land forces and an air wing. Recruitment to the forces is done annually.
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent are among the list of protected persons under international humanitarian law that grant them immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and become more frequent since the 1990s and 2000s. In 2017, the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) documented 139 humanitarian workers killed in intentional attacks out of the estimated global population of 569,700 workers. In every year since 2013, more than 100 humanitarian workers were killed. This is attributed to a number of factors, including the increasing number of humanitarian workers deployed, the increasingly unstable environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of neutrality and independence. In 2012 road travel was seen to be the most dangerous context, with kidnappings of aid workers quadrupling in the last decade, reaching more aid workers victims than any other form of attack.
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations, or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without the support of governments or international organizations.
The Somali Civil War is an ongoing civil war that is taking place in Somalia. It grew out of resistance to the military junta which was led by Siad Barre during the 1980s. From 1988 to 1990, the Somali Armed Forces began engaging in combat against various armed rebel groups, including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in the northeast, the Somali National Movement in the Somaliland War of Independence in the northwest, and the United Somali Congress in the south. The clan-based armed opposition groups overthrew the Barre government in 1991.
The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was internationally recognized as a provisional government of the Somalia from 14 October 2004 until 20 August 2012, when its tenure officially ended and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) was inaugurated.
The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, also known as the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia or the Ethiopian intervention in the Somali Civil War, was an armed conflict that lasted from late 2006 to early 2009. It began when military forces from Ethiopia, supported by the United States, invaded Somalia to depose the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and install the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The conflict continued after the invasion when an anti-Ethiopian insurgency emerged and rapidly escalated. During 2007 and 2008, the insurgency recaptured the majority of territory lost by the ICU.
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was a Multinational force formed by the African Union. The operation deployed to Somalia soon after the Islamic Courts Union was deposed by troops from Ethiopia during a large scale invasion in late 2006. The missions primary objective was to maintain the regime change between the ICU and the newly installed Transitional Federal Government, implement a national security plan and train the TFG security forces. As part of its duties, AMISOM later supported the Federal Government of Somalia in its war against Al-Shabaab. AMISOM was the most deadly peacekeeping operation in the post-war era.
Various international and local diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in the Somali Civil War have been in effect since the conflict first began in the early 1990s. The latter include diplomatic initiatives put together by the African Union, the Arab League and the European Union, as well as humanitarian efforts led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) and the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS).
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, also known as Abu Mansur, is a former deputy leader and former spokesman of the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab. In 2015, he defected from Al-Shabaab due to ideology issues after years of hiding in his hometown. In 2022, Robow was appointed as the Minister of Religious Affairs in the Somali government.
Nicolas Bwakira was a Burundian diplomat, international civil servant and pan-africanist. During his long and exemplary career, Bwakira took on senior roles and responsibilities at various institutions, including the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the University of South Africa (UNISA), the African Union, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI). Bwakira fought the good fight as a pan-Africanist and international civil servant in the service of Africa and its people, especially for those in Namibia, Angola, Somalia and, more recently, the Lake Chad Basin. The quest for peace was his lifelong passion. From the time of his posting in Angola in 1976, he developed a special connection with southern African countries, among which Namibia. From 1976 to 1990, Namibian refugees and Namibia’s independence featured prominently in his professional career. In his role as Coordinator for the return of Namibian exiles, he was instrumental in negotiating a total blanket amnesty with the apartheid government as a condition for the return of Namibian exiles. Later, as Director for Africa, he negotiated a total blanket amnesty with the apartheid government, as a pre-condition of the return of South African exiles members of liberation movements.
The Somali Civil War (2009–present) is the ongoing phase of the Somali Civil War which is concentrated in southern and central Somalia. It began in late January 2009 with the present conflict mainly between the forces of the Federal Government of Somalia assisted by African Union peacekeeping troops and al-Shabaab militants who pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda during 2012.
The United Nations Support Office for AMISOM (UNSOA) was a field support operation led by the United Nations Department of Field Support (DFS). It was located in Mogadishu and Nairobi in East Africa, focused on support of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
The War on Terror is the campaign launched by the United States of America in response to the September 11 attacks against organizations designated with terrorism. The campaign, whose stated objective was eliminating international terrorism, began in 2001. The following is a timeline of events linked to the War on Terror.
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Anita Kiki Gbeho is a Ghanaian United Nations official who is the Deputy Special Representative in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan and Resident Coordinator in South Sudan since 8 December 2023.
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