In 2002 Benetton commissioned James Mollison to photograph some of the 17 million people that the World Food Program (WFP) feeds. The images from the famine in Ethiopia in the early 80′s had a big affect on Mollison while growing up, but since then he had felt somewhat desensitized to images of povert. Mollison decided to take his mobile studio- and take away the exotic backdrops and present them as people. He became interested in how the WFP uses food as a tool to get people to change their lives, a kind of bribery for social change.
‘When it happened, I wanted them to kill me. Now, I want justice’ - Mustapha, 49, Grafton Settlement Camp, Sierra Leone
Aqulmina, 9, Panah, 12, Pol-i-Charki Repatriation Center, Afghanistan
I never used a gun; I used a machete instead. -Idrissa, 35, Kenema, Sierra Leone
“We have an expression here: our home is our grave. This is our home and we cannot go to another country again.” -Mohammed Barat (father)
‘The Taliban was the enemy of education, particularly for women. I am trying to bring the pupils from the darkness to the light.’
-Khaliq Dad, 42, principal of the Ashuqan School.
These six women receive food rations at a center for excombatants in Kailahun, Sierra Leone. All were members of the RUF. Many of the 97 women at the center were physically assaulted during the conflict and over 70 percent of them have children from war-related rape. All six women are now training to be hairdressers.
The provincial rehabilitation center in siem reap, cambodia, houses and feeds 30-40 landmine victims. They stay for 10 days while a polypropylene prosthetic—which costs about US $50—is made, fitted and worn in. (The prosthetics pictured are homemade from wood and shell casings.) In Cambodia, where landmines kill or maim around 80 people a day, removing a landmine from the ground costs $1,000. There remain 4-6 million unexploded landmines in the country
‘One time I went to the market and my face was covered, but I forgot and tried to eat a banana through the burka. It wasn’t terrible just because of the burka; we had a lot of terrible times. We weren’t allowed to go out, so at home I wrote some poems and articles to keep my mind busy, but I don’t know where to start about women’s problems in my country’ -Saliha, 28, journalist, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Kabul, Afghanistan
“Under the Taliban The Ministry of Vice and Virtue enforced bans on music, dancing, television, radio, kite flying and wearing white socks—and women were forced to wear a burka.” - Basima, 16, Pol-i-Charki, Afghanistan
