S Vinothaa

S Vinothaa is a senior journalist at Malaysiakini, specialising in workers’ issues and investigative reporting. She began her career in the 1990s with a leading English daily, where she spent seven years before venturing into the private sector and later transitioning into the human rights, women’s rights, and trade union movements, including a global union. Over the years, she has also worked in a media house, civil society organisations, and even a housing association in the United Kingdom, gaining a diverse skill set that spans writing, graphic design, video editing, social media content, and training grassroots women in video activism. After 23 years away from mainstream newsrooms, journalism called her back in 2022. Observing the worsening plight of migrant workers in Malaysia after the easing of pandemic restrictions, she re-entered the field with renewed focus on exposing systemic abuses and corruption. Her work has earned national and international recognition. She is the first foreign journalist to receive Indonesia’s Hassan Wirajuda Protection Award and has twice won the Malaysian Press Institute’s Best Investigative Journalism award in consecutive years. Her exposés on trafficking, labour exploitation, and stateless indigenous women have also garnered two regional SOPA Awards and Malaysia’s top journalism honour, the Kajai Award.