I am a child
One of the greatest threats to women and children's health -regardless of country- is domestic violence.
Children are equally vulnerable to women in cases of domestic violence perpetrated by the mother's male partner, but their plight is often absent from public discourse on the subject.
Today there are more children than women living in domestic abuse shelters. In Sweden alone, some 2,700 children live in homes designed to protect them and their mothers. Uprooted from their neighborhoods, friends and school, they are forced to assume a new life, a new identity, and a new family history. In the project Jag är barn - I am a child, I have worked to shed light on the turbulent change they must go through to assume a new identity. The portraits in this project were made in close collaboration with the children. Each child assisted in creating an artful mask and selecting an environment where they would photographed in a way that protected their identity, but expressed something about their personality and living situation.
This project was completed in close collaboration with journalist Linda Vodopija Stark and Farideh Arman of the Women's Rights Organisation in Malmo, Sweden.