November 21, 2009
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For years I’ve been photo-documenting human rights issues in Nepal, including child labor. Recent statistics shows that about 7 million Nepali children between the ages of 5-14 are working. Apart from health considerations, this negates their chances of getting an education. Nearly half of these children are working full time. Some of them work in India and even further abroad.
I was recently in touch with Alex Masi, a London photographer who shares my interest in child exploitation. Alex has taken some amazing shots of Indian child laborers in the last few years. The brilliance of his photography makes verbal social commentary almost superfluous. Alex’s work has appeared in “Vanity Fair”, “Marie Claire”, “Newsweek”, “'Condé Nast Portfolio”, “El Pais Semanal”, “Aftenposten Innsikt”, “L' Espresso”, “US News & World Report”, among other international magazines and publications.
The photographs that Alex has allowed me to publish are from his Hidden Youth series, a project documenting child labor in Firozabad, India, an extremely polluted city in Uttar Pradesh (not far from Agra) famous for its glass bangle industry. Firozabad is the only place in India where these bracelets are manufactured and they are sold worldwide – perhaps in a store near you.
In Alex’s words:
Most of the work is carried out by local children, raised to be tools of mass production, chained to a life of exploitation inside their own homes, where the glittering bracelets they handle everyday assume the form of handcuffs to a future of servitude. Due to extreme poverty and a lack of choices, over 20.000 young children are still employed in this area, considered to be one of the highest concentrations of child labour on the planet. Forced to work to support their disadvantaged families, children as young as five can earn an average of 30-40 Indian Rupees [approximate one US dollar] for eight or more hours of work daily, while being unable to receive any sort of education. They sit in crouched positions, use solvents, glues, kerosene and various other dangerous materials while breathing toxic fumes and spending most time of the day in dark, harmful environments.
To see more of Alex's superb work, visit his website by clicking on his name below:
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