UNICEF PHOTO OF THE YEAR
THE AWARD 2014
Each year, UNICEF Germany and GEO Germany (from the publishing house Gruner +Jahr AG & Co KG) grant the “UNICEF Photo of the Year Award” to photos and photo series that best depict the personality and living conditions of children worldwide in an outstanding manner.
German Photographers Insa Hagemann and Stefan Finger are the winner of the competition “UNICEF Photo of the Year 2014”. Their reportage on the effects of sextourism in the Philippines gives an insight in the situation of children whose fathers live abroad.
INSA HAGEMANN/STEFAN FINGER, GERMANY
Philippines: “Wanna have love?”
© Insa Hagemann and Stefan Finger/laif
Maybe their mothers hoped to find a man who was going to lift them from poverty, maybe they saw no other way out than to sell their bodies. The mothers gave themselves to strangers: Europeans, Australians, Americans. The result: children without fathers, since the men fathering these children have long since left.
But their children definitely stand out on the streets of the Philippines. The different color of their skin (mostly lighter but sometimes also darker skin), in some cases their blond hair, their blue eyes! They often have to live with the stigma of being the children of prostitutes, no matter what profession their mothers might actually have. And no matter if they might just be the result of love.
© Insa Hagemann and Stefan Finger/laif
Click on a picture to enlarge
German photographers Insa Hagemann and Stefan Finger, both born in 1983, have painted a gentle portrait of these Philippine children. They have met their mothers and asked about their fathers. They saw the children’s hope that one day their fathers will reappear and accept them as their own. And they went to visit an aid organization that provides shelter to victims of sexual violence and sex tourism.
Curriculum Vitae: Insa Hagemann/Stefan Finger (laif)
