'Children’s Hands' named best human rights photo
June 28, 2011
GMB Akash of Bangladesh was named the winner of the international photo competition “KLICK! – Your View of Human Rights and Globalization”. The contest was launched by Deutsche Welle and Amnesty International. The winning photographs were selected by around 1,500 participants at this year’s Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, which ended on Wednesday, June 22, 2011.
Akash’s photograph, entitled “Children’s Hands” won first place. “It shows eight-year-old Munna who works in a rickshaw factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh,” explains Akash. “The boy earns about 500 taka ($7 USD) a month, working 10 hours a day. When production often stops due to lack of electricity, he has time to play. It is common in Bangladesh for children of poor parents to work in various hazardous and labor-intensive workplaces to support their families. Seventeen and a half percent of all children aged between 5-15 are engaged in economic activities. The average child worker earns between 400 to 700 taka ($1 USD = 70 taka) per month, while an adult worker earns up to 5,000 taka per month.”
During the announcement of the competition’s results on Tuesday, 21 June, Deutsche Welle Director General Erik Bettermann called Akash’s photograph, “a moving image that demonstrates the global relevance of human rights – and how important it is for us here at the Global Media Forum to develop approaches to solving pressing issues.”
The other winning photographs were “Multi Kulti” (multiculturalism) by Josef Hinterleitner of Austria and “Drinking Water” by Monowara Begum Moni, a journalist from Bangladesh who lives in Stuttgart, Germany. Over the past several weeks, photographers from around the world were invited to submit their entries pertaining to the conference theme, human rights and globalization. The submissions can be viewed online in an interactive world map at www.dw-world.de/klick and in a Facebook gallery at www.facebook.com/dw.gmf.
In an initial selection process, Internet users nominated 30 finalists. These were on display during the fourth installment of the German international broadcaster’s series of annual congresses known as the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. This year’s theme was “Human Rights and Globalization – Challenges for the Media”. Of the 30 finalist pictures, conference delegates selected their three favorites to determine the winners. “Child labor can be combated if parents receive working wages that allow them to feed their families,” said Julia Naumann, spokesperson of Amnesty International Germany, referring to the winning photograph. “Children need access to schooling and education. That is key to escaping poverty.”