BRIAN SOKOL, USA
BANGLADESH / MYANMAR: SHROUDED MATERNITY
When they were 14, 15, 16 years old, they were brutally raped by soldiers in Myanmar. They survived and fled their burnt villages, bleeding and naked, with the terrible images of their slaughtered relatives in their heads. Now they live in refugee camps in Bangladesh, while the children fathered by murderers grow inside them.

© Brian Sokol, USA (for UNICEF)
US-born photographer Brian Sokol photographed some of the expectant mothers and listened to their horrible stories. Sokol’s portraits are very cautious, and this is intentional; he doesn’t disclose the girls’ real names and their veils symbolize these victims’ fragile existences, their trauma, their shame and their fear of being cast out. However, he contradicts media reports that most of the girls were thinking about having an abortion. On the contrary, he says. For many of these girls and young women who have lost their entire families, the babies growing inside them provide them with the hope to escape this hell with a new life.
Curriculum Vitae: Brian Sokol (for UNICEF)

© 2017 Tom Van Houtryve