Child labor

Child Labor Pictures

Child labor, although illegal in most countries, still continues on a wide scale, primarily in the developing world. Hundreds of thousands of children trade their childhood, education and potential in order to work long hours in horrible conditions. They do it out of necessity and these images are a testament to some of the conditions they work in.

Despite all of the horrors associated with child labor, in many instances it can be better for the children than their other options. In countries affected by dire poverty, unemployment and high levels of HIV (which can take parents out of the workforce and plummet families into abject poverty) child labor can be the only way for families to survive. In other situations a child who is unable to afford an education may only be left with the two choices, either to work or to end up on the streets. My personal experiences have shown me that although the work conditions are often horrible for the children, they are nothing compared to the conditions on the streets.

Children obviously deserve the right to an education and the right to having a childhood free from hard labor. But as long as we have countries that are extremely rich and ones that are extremely poor, the children in the poor countries will have to work. I have begun this project documenting child labor because I believe that the developed world needs to be reminded of what life is like in other places. We need to find more balance on this planet, some children have $500 video game systems while others all but kill themselves just to feed themselves and their families. We need to work more towards balancing things out.

 

Photographing Child Labor: Photographer's Notes

Shooting this project had its share of challenges, although not necessarily the ones I expected. Actually finding the subject matter was easy enough and getting access to the factories was also not difficult most of the time. However once inside it was a different story.

As you might imagine, it was quite exciting for the children to have a guest show up and break up the monotony of their work day. So there was a lot of waiting as for the smiles and laughter to subside and the usual grind to continue. I obviously wanted to document their lives in as realistic a way as possible and not document their reactions towards a foreigner with a big camera in the workplace.

The other major issue shooting this project was lack of light. Most of the factories were indoors with few or no windows at all and only minimal, if any lighting. To make things more complicated the conditions were usually extremely cramped which made getting good angles to shoot from very difficult. Add to that all of the movement as the children worked, I ended up with dozens of unusable frames every day.

TIP: When I work in low light situations I usually shoot in bursts of three frames at a times, as there is usually some camera shake both as you press and release the shutter. In bursts of three, the middle shot will usually be the steadiest and most usable.

 

Children breathe in smoke while pouring hot metal into molds in a small, industrial factory.

 

A young boy carries a large bag of recyclables while working in a public dump.

 

A child working in a factory that deals with making bags and other paper goods.

 

A boy coated in dirt and grease while working in a shipyard.

 

 The boy using a makeshift bandage to cover a wound on his foot while working barefoot in a dumpsite.

 

 A boy working alongside an older man in a factory.

 

A child covered in sweat while working in a garage that services cars and trucks.

 

Young trash collectors weighing cans and bottles at a roadside weigh station near a city dump.

 

Children working in a paper plant.

 

 A young boy working with teenagers in a metal machining factory.

 

 A boy working at a small streetside grocery store.

 

A child working at a sewing machine making seats for cars and vans.

 

A young worker in a market area takes a break and rests at the end of the day.

 

Comments

[Peter Levi]

Such a strong and beautiful work. Top class storytelling and it left me both in awe for the photographic beauty and the sad reality for these kids.

[Laurent]

Zoriah, incredible job. As good as past time you were embed.
The question is : what now ?

[One Fly]

Great job and interesting perspective on child labor that needs more discussion. Did you ever see these kids having fun??

[Soham]

Zoriah, we've been waiting for your new essay for a long time. And now that it is here, I know that it is worth the wait. The emotions of war, conflict and calamity is deeply embedded in this work.

Thanks for making your blog the window to your life and latest work. We need our regular dose of your photos!

Take care. Peace to you and all.

Peace to all the young souls sweating it out invisibly.

[Zoriah]

Thank you all for your comments, here are a couple of brief answers for you:

The question is : what now ? I will be working more on the subject of child labor during the next six months and hope to begin a couple of new projects as well. I will post them here when they are completed, but for now I will leave them as surprises.

Did you ever see these kids having fun?? For the most part, the lives of the children are just far too difficult. In some situations they kids were having fun, it seemed to depend a lot on who they were working for. In the factories they seemed quite miserable except in a few situations when I believe they were working for/with their families. Many of children in the dump sites were having fun and playing around with each other, most likely because they were not being supervised while they worked.

Thanks again for your questions and support.

zoriah

[Jo-Anna]

As always, thank you for the eye-opening photos.

[Kevin Connelly]

Zoriah-

As always I'm really impressed with the images and subject matter. However, while looking at the images I can't help but think...what can we do? I guess I'm thinking this way because many of your other stories shed light on either a current event issue(conflict, war, disease, relief) or the work of organizations which works to aid individuals affected by these circumstances. However, this seems to be such a broad topic and something which has existed for thousands of years. I feel like most of the world is already aware that child labor exists. What I'm trying to say is...what was your goal for taking these photographs other than awareness? How could people see these images and do something about it? Were you linking these to an organization of any kind?
Thanks so much and thank you for the inspiration.