Anti-Trafficking Efforts and Photography

http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Lisa-Kristine-photographs-slavery-4167748.php#photo-3980832

Take a look at these photographs. In the realm of anti-human trafficking efforts, Lisa Kristine is well known for a collection of photographs depicting modern-day slavery.

This week we read articles relating to the ethics of visual documentation. In The politics of photographic aesthetics: critically documenting the HIV epidemic along heroin injectors in Russia and the United States,” Schonber/Bourgois explain how photos “…might foster critical social engagement through an emotional aesthetic—empathy, horror, awareness, and anger—by documenting extreme levels of social suffering in the heart of the American Dream” (388). Kristine’s article accomplishes this precisely; she took these photographs for a distinct purpose: to reveal to the public that modern-day slavery still exists and to spur these individuals to take action against it.

My PE, Challenging Heights, runs a school and rehabilitation center for child trafficking survivors. In order to encourage people to donate money to their organization, I expected CH to publish pictures of children working on farms or in fishing boats. Once the viewer witnesses this terrible situation, he or she would feel inclined to contribute (via donation) to CH’s cause.

However, CH website consists of no children working as slaves (Take a look here: http://challengingheights.org/). All the photos illustrate children reading, studying, playing soccer, laughing, and just being kids. We often see the stereotypical pictures of African children, who are starving, illiterate, or my PE’s case, slaves. Instead, Challenging Heights does not victimize the children, but portrays them as strong survivors who are working past the injustices they’ve experienced. However, as Schonberg/Bourgois state, is this ‘sanitizing’ the ‘extreme social suffering’ of human trafficking? In my opinion, I do not think so. I think having such photos solidifies the children's identity as slaves...when really, they are trying to move past this label and reclaim a new identity as free individuals with a bright future ahead of them. What do you think? Do you think CH should publish photos like Lisa Kristine's?