Justin Heifetz is an independent journalist in France with more than a decade of experience in reporting and editing.

Based out of Marseille, he covers news and social affairs with a focus on immigration, crime and human rights.

His work can be found in VICE, CNN, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Condé Nast’s them., Roads and Kingdoms, The Diplomat, The Outline, La Croix, South China Morning Post and elsewhere.

Before relocating to France in 2021, Justin worked as a journalist in Asia. He reported on Manila’s elderly drag performers living in transient shelters, social and workplace discrimination against North Korean defectors in Seoul and the threat of sexual violence facing Kolkata’s transgender community. In Hong Kong, Justin’s coverage helped reveal government-funded conversion therapy programs, teens risking dangerous abortions at illegal clinics, police officers assaulting and incriminating sex workers and the rampant abuse of live-in maids. His investigative writing chronicled how domestic workers from the Philippines become entrapped abroad and why Hong Kong is running out of space for waste, affordable housing and its own dead.

A native of Boston, Justin holds a Master of Journalism from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from Franklin & Marshall College. He began his career at local newspaper desks in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand in 2011 and became a freelance reporter in 2016.