Eva
Luise Köhler honours the winners of the contest
„UNICEF Photo of the Year 2005“
The British photographer David Gillanders
is the winner of this year’s international photographic
contest „UNICEF Photo of the Year“. His
photo shows a street child in Odessa. Yana made her
way from Moldova, the poorest country in Eastern Europe,
to the Ukrainian city. She died last Christmas addicted
to drugs and infected with the HI virus. She was only
13 years old. Yana’s fate is a typical example
for a lost generation of children and adolescents in
many Eastern European countries. In no other region
of the world does the virus spread as rapidly –
above all because drug addicts often use contaminated
syringes. Approximately one per cent of the population
is addicted to hard drugs. 1.4 million have already
contracted HIV, primarily young people are affected:
80 per cent of all infected people in Eastern Europe
are less than 30 years old – every tenth of them
is a child.
„The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2005 gives a face
to the HIV/AIDS catastrophe in Eastern Europe. It is
an appeal for our compassion. We must not forget the
children who collapse in view of the breakdown of their
families and the harsh social environment“, says
Eva Luise Köhler, Patroness of UNICEF Germany at
the award ceremony.
87 of the world’s best
photographers from 20 countries submitted 894 photos
for this UNICEF contest. The jury headed by Timm Rautert,
Professor for Photography at the Academy of Visual Arts
in Leipzig, awarded a second and third prize and gave
seven honourable mentions. For the sixth time UNICEF
awards photographs of a high artistic and photojournalistic
level that illustrate the living conditions of children.
The contest is supported by the magazine GEO and Citibank.
13 year old Yana finds her
way from Moldova to the Ukraine. Her father, an
alcoholic, died early; her mother was sent to
jail when Yana was eight years old. Since, she
has been living on the street, recently in Odessa.
By injecting drugs, she gets infected with the
HI-Virus. During Christmas 2004, she feels very
sick, crawls into a hole and dies in the winter
cold.
The Scottish photographer David
John Gillanders is working on a project about
street children in Odessa since three years. His
attention is directed towards a lost generation:
Children who grow up without parental protection
in the States of the former Soviet Union. Hundreds
of thousands of them are homeless. They wash cars,
collect bottles or sell stolen goods. Many of
them work as prostitutes or take drugs. More and
more kids continue to become infected with HIV.
Yana’s story is not an
exception. Even more, it is typical for the hardships
a growing number of children and teenagers has
to endure in Eastern European States. Nowhere
in the world is the virus spreading as fast as
in this region. Since 1995, the number of people
infected with HIV increased from 160.000 to 1.4
million. In the Ukraine, the rate of infections
is even twentyfold higher than five years ago.
Meanwhile, 360 000 are HIV positive.
AIDS is a silent disaster
that had been pushed aside also in Eastern Europe
for too long. The virus spread almost unnoticed,
mainly by drug abuse. Addicts share dirty needles
and infect each other. In the meantime, the virus
threatens all parts of the society. In particular
young people are affected: 80 percent of all HIV-infected
persons in Eastern Europe are younger than 30
years – ten percent of them are children.
Women are especially vulnerable. In the Ukraine,
40 percent of all people living with HIV are female.
Photos: David
Gillanders, Scottland / Free Lance Photographer
Ayad Ali Brissam Karim was born in
Baghdad in 1991. In 2003, during the Gulf War, the farm
of his parents gets into the frontline and is attacked
by US-American helicopters. His uncle Mohammad loses
his leg. His grandmother Telba is injured, too, when
trying to help Ayad. Ayad’s face is badly burnt
and his right eye becomes blind.
“He left school because the
other boys teased him”, says his 42-year old father,
Ali Brissam Karim. “He can speak, however, he
cannot read. He cannot help us with field work.”
Worse than the physical injuries
are the psychological consequences. „Many times
a day he asks the same question and becomes aggressive
for no obvious reason“, his mother says. In the
meantime, Ayad has undergone medical treatment in the
US, however, his eyesight could not be recovered.
The view of Frida Hedberg, a young
Swedish photographer who was nominated for the UNICEF
Photo of the year in September 2005, seems to be full
of understanding. Encouraged by her success, she spontaneously
elaborated a new series of pictures. Fridberg took them
in her own country, at a school party in the small village
Äspered close to Gothenburg. In an amusing way
she shows how seven and eight year old kids prepare
themselves for the dancing stage. The awarded photo
is titled “Boys and Girls”. It catches the
glance of a little boy getting a first impression of
what a school party is all about.
