Death has been forcing a familiarity lately – an uneasy intimacy with its commonplace nature. How do you take custody of someone else’s grief? And what if you do it wrong?
Use it for good. Do something with it. Photojournalist Tim Matsui talks to Human Goods about bearing witness to courage in an upside-down world, and what he hopes his audience will take away from what they see.
Will the efforts sparked by India’s “revolutionary” new education bill be radical enough to reach its millions of child laborers?
The fans have gone home. The stadiums are empty. But the legacy of South Africa’s World Cup games remains to be seen in one of the world’s most unequal societies.
On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat. Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. How Senegal’s Quranic boarding schools became hubs for forced begging.
A small girl spins high above the tantalized crowd, gripping a bar with nothing but her teeth. It’s not a piece of outlandish fiction. It’s the Indian circus, and it depends on hundreds of trafficked Nepalese children to thrill audiences with bizarre and dangerous acts.
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Systematic extermination. Forced migration. Re-education. Sterilization. The collective history of Native Americans is infused with centuries of genocide and oppression that create a unique vulnerability to sex trafficking.
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For a submissive girl, go to Southeast Asia. For someone a little more feisty, try Latin America. The drive behind sex tourists’ desire for encounters with “exotic third-world” women is rooted in a centuries-old history.
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How far can American companies and consumers go in regulating the bloody flow of Congolese precious metals into our electronics? The hopes and limits of Obama’s financial reform bill.
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If I define my neighbor as the one I must go out to look for, on the highways and byways, in the factories and slums, on the farms and in the mines – then my world changes …
How far can American companies and consumers go in regulating the bloody flow of Congolese precious metals into our electronics? The hopes and limits of Obama’s financial reform bill.
For a submissive girl, go to Southeast Asia. For someone a little more feisty, try Latin America. The drive behind sex tourists’ desire for encounters with “exotic third-world” women is rooted in a centuries-old history.
A small girl spins high above the tantalized crowd, gripping a bar with nothing but her teeth. It’s not a piece of outlandish fiction. It’s the Indian circus, and it depends on hundreds of trafficked Nepalese children to thrill audiences with bizarre and dangerous acts.
Systematic extermination. Forced migration. Re-education. Sterilization. The collective history of Native Americans is infused with centuries of genocide and oppression that create a unique vulnerability to sex trafficking.
Female-headed households accounted for almost a quarter of the refugees with the U.N. refugee agency. Widowed, divorced, or separated from husbands by the war, many women had children or elderly parents to support. Sex was often their only marketable asset.
Picture a mother with several children living in Africa, Asia, or South America. She lost her husband to malaria a couple of years ago, she cannot work due to a disabling injury, and she usually hasn’t enough food to protect her children from the ravages of malnutrition.
The most obvious consequence of globalization for the urban poor has been the emergence of a significant middle class – often cited as one of the surest indicators of ‘development’ – who demand more and more space for their accommodation, particularly in capital and large provincial cities.
The moment porn truly stopped being fun came in a remote Ghanaian village — mud huts, barefoot kids, no electricity. How hardcore American porn is propelling the spread of AIDS and sexual violence in Africa.
“To write, or not to write … I had my first guest. I cannot put my feelings into words. I only know that I am hurting.”
It’s very fashionable to talk about human trafficking in this fantastic AC hall. It’s very nice for discussion, discourse, making films and everything. But it is not nice to bring them to our homes.
Genesis Ramirez was 15 years old when she turned her first trick. The following years blended together in a traumatizing series of rapes, beatings, stabbings, miscarriages, and addictions. Today she’s a proud mother and a nursing home aide, but she still spends some Saturday nights walking the streets– this time to help other women.
Showing our love for one another with products produced by the blood, sweat, and tears of others is perhaps a little absurd. But it’s Valentine’s Day. So what about chocolate?
“To understand what has happened in Haiti, you have to delve into a long-suppressed history – one you are not supposed to hear. The serve-the-rich ideology that caused our economy to crash in 2008 has been crashing poor countries for a long time.”
In the alleys of Miami, host of this year’s Super Bowl, just a handful of social workers, police, and volunteers are roaming around in the shadows, looking for underage girls who might have been trafficked to the city for the big game.
“It’s true: I do love exploring garbage, visiting dumps, and rifling through trash cans in new cities. But for me, garbage never has been the end point; it is an entree to much deeper economic, social, and environmental issues.”
“They go and capture other people’s children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits.” As accusations of child sacrifice in Uganda escalate, skeptics fear a return to a sensational view of the “Dark Continent.”
Perhaps most famous for his groundbreaking reworking of American history, “A People’s History of the United States,” Howard Zinn spent his life giving voice to those elbowed to the margins of society.
Two minutes later, the quake smashed open the building, and the top three floors pitched northward, hurling Bill down nearly 80 feet onto a neighbor’s concrete roof, where he landed briefly, apparently on his back. Almost immediately, he tumbled onto a tin-roofed shack and then to the ground.
In Haiti’s unstable post-quake atmosphere, at least one industry is poised to flourish. For those who buy and sell children for sex and cheap labor, Haiti is ripe with opportunity.
The damage wrought in Haiti last week is only a more dramatic and pronounced shake up of long-term systemic fault lines and fissures that have kept people vulnerable and impoverished for years.
Joseph:
Wonderful work Christa. I watched your Movie also. My momory being there in Ashram is stil...
trish:
hi, Christa, I have just finished reading this. I was talking to someone about India today...
Sam S:
Interesting article--I witnessed a similar problem with kids in Talibé schools in Chad. ...
Seth:
Christa,
Photojournalism is a gift for you. I had never thought about porn and its expor...
commercial lawyer Melbourne:
Great post, you’ve helped me a lot...
