He had always wanted to be a diplomat, but when he arrived in France Luc Olinga developed an obsession to become a journalist. Armed with a diploma from ISCPA (school of media studies in Paris) and the Paris Political Science Institute, he gained experience in television, radio and the print press in Lyon and Paris, the two cities where he was based.

He reports for Le Progrès, France 2, RFI and Le Figaro thanks to the free time afforded by the studies he continues to pursue, but he knows exactly what he wants to do: “I can’t stand missing out on a hot story,” says Olinga, who won the François-Chalais grant for young reporters.

All it took was an e-mail alerting him to the exodus of Cameroonian women and his meeting with two students from Yaoundé to whet his interest in the subject. “They were emancipated, young and already married to much older white men,” he says. He discovered that a mass phenomenon of online marriages was emptying Cameroon of its women – all types of women: poor, rich, young, old, urban and rural. For their own happiness? Not necessarily. While some blossomed in France, most of them had sunk into sordid prostitution, whose revenues deceive families back home in Cameroon. Economic impoverishment versus emotional impoverishment? A new debate that could, he believes, eventually alter North-South relations. No doubt about it: an investigation is in order.

Luc Olinga is currently reporter in the social department of  the Agence France Presse (AFP) in Paris.